'      '        \ '  j V  t  ji  1  ^{    ;« jM-i  Aii  M  B  E  K 

..j.Jli  PAST  LIVES 


1 


1 


THE  LIBRARY. 
OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 
LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 

lirs.  R.J.  Gobden 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2014 


https://archive.org/details/howwerememberourOOjina 


HOW  WE  REMEMBER 
OUR  PAST  LIVES 

AND  OTHER  ESSAYS  ON  REINCARNATION 


C.  JINARAJADASA,  M.  A. 

ST.  JOHN'S  COLL..  CAMB. 


THE  THEOSOPHICAL  PRESS 
826  Oakdale  Avenue 
CHICAGO 


Copyright 

1923 

The  American  TbeosopMcal  Society 
826  Oakdale  Avenue 
Chicago 


TO 

THE  CAPTAIN  OF  OUR  SALVATION 
IN  FULFILMENT  OF  A  PROMISE 
FULL  MOON  OF  CHAITRA,  1912 


NOTE 

These  four  essays  on  Reincarnation  have 
been  delivered  as  lectures  during  the  course  of 
my  Theosophical  work  in  America,  England 
and  India.  All  have  appeared  in  The  The- 
osopist,  except  "The  Law  of  Renunciation/' 
which  was  published  in  Bibby's  Annual, 
whence  it  is  reprinted  here  with  Mr.  Joseph 
Bibby's  permission. 

C.  J. 


PREFACE  TO  AMERICAN  EDITION 

A  new  school  of  thought  is  arising  to  challenge  long- 
accepted  views  of  life.  Its  keynote  may  be  said  to  be 
''evolutionary  creation."  It  is  an  exposition  of  the 
phenomena  that  surrounds  us  in  terms  that  are  both 
scientific  and  idealistic.  It  offers  an  explanation  of 
life,  of  the  origin  of  our  fragment  of  the  universe,  of 
hidden  and  mysterious  natural  laws,  of  the  nature  and 
destiny  of  man,  that  appeals  with  moving  force  to  the 
logical  mind.  This  school  of  thought  is  at  the  same 
time  both  iconoclastic  and  constructive,  for  it  is  sweep- 
ing away  old  dogmas  that  are  no  longer  tenable  in 
the  light  of  rapidly  developing  modern  science,  while 
it  is  building  a  substantial  structure  of  facts  beneath 
the  age-long  dream  of  immortality. 

The  literature  that  is  growing  out  of  ideas  which 
are  so  revolutionary  in  the  intellectual  realm  and  yet 
are  so  welcome  to  a  world  groping  through  the  fogs  of 
materialism,  is  receiving  a  warm  welcome  in  other 
lands,  and  it  should  be  better  known  here. 

The  Publishees. 


CONTENTS 

Page 

How  We  Remember  Past  Lives   11 

The  Vision  of  the  Spirit   53 

The  Law  of  Renunciation   81 

The  Hidden  Work  of  Nature   91 


HOW  WE  REMEMBER  OUR 
PAST  LIVES 

Among  the  many  ideas  that  have  lightened 
the  burden  of  men,  one  of  the  most  service- 
able has  been  that  of  Reincarnation.  It  not 
only  explains  why  one  man  is  born  in  the  lap 
of  luxury  and  another  in  poverty,  why  one  is 
a  genius  and  another  an  idiot,  but -it  also 
holds  out  the  hope  that,  as  men  now  reap  as 
they  have  sown  in  the  past,  so  in  future  lives 
the  poor  and  the  wretched  of  today  will  have 
what  they  lack,  if  so  they  work  for  it,  and 
that  the  idiot  may  life  after  life  build  up  a 
mentality  which  in  far-off  days  may  flower 
as  the  genius. 

When  the  idea  of  reincarnation  is  heard 
of  for  the  first  time,  the  student  naturally 
supposes  that  it  is  a  Hindu  doctrine,  for  it  is 
known  to  be  a  fundamental  part  of  both 
Hinduism  and  Buddhism.  But  the  strange 
fact  is  that  reincarnation  is  found  every- 
where as  a  belief,  and  its  origin  cannot  be 
traced  to  Indian  soiurces.   We  hear  of  it  in 


12  REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES 

far-oJEf  Australia/  and  there  is  a  story  on  rec- 
ord of  an  Australian  aborigine  who  went 
cheerfully  to  the  gallows,  and  replied  on  be- 
ing questioned  as  to  his  levity,  "Tumble  down 
black-fellow,  jump  up  white-fellow,  and  have 
lots  of  sixpences  to  spend!"  It  was  taught 
by  the  Druids  of  ancient  Gaul,  and  Julius 
Caesar  tells  us  how  young  Gauls  were  taught 
reincarnation,  and  that  as  a  consequence  they 
had  no  fear  of  death.  Greek  philosophers 
knew  of  it;  we  have  Pythagoras  telling  his 
pupils  that  in  his  past  lives  he  had  been  a 
warrior  at  the  siege  of  Troy,  and  later  was 
the  philosopher  Hermotimus  of  Clazomenae, 
It  is  not  utterly  unknown  to  Christian  teach- 
ing, if  we  take  the  simple  statement  of  Christ, 
when  questioned  whether  John  the  Baptist 
was  Elijah  or  Elias  reborn,  "If  ye  will  receive 
it,  this  is  Elias  which  was  for  to  come,"  and  He 
follows  up  the  statement  with  the  significant 
words,  "He  that  hath  ears  to  hear,  let  him 
hear."  In  later  Jewish  tradition  the  idea  is 
known  and  the  Talmud  mentions  several 
cases  of  reincarnation. 

There  are  many  to  whom  reincarnation 
appeals  most  forcibly,  and  Schopenhauer  does 

iSee  The  Northern  Tribes  of  Central  Australia,  by  Baldwin 
Spencer  &  F.  G.  Gillen,  1904,  p.  175,  etc. 


REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES  13 

but  little  exaggerate  when  he  says,  "I  have 
also  remarked  that  it  is  at  once  obvious  to 
every  one  who  hears  of  it  for  the  first  time." 
Some  believe  in  the  idea  immediately;  it 
comes  to  them  like  a  flash  of  light  in  thick 
darkness  and  the  problem  of  life  is  clearly 
seen  with  reincarnation  as  the  solution. 
Others  there  are  who  grow  into  belief,  as  each 
doubt  is  solved  and  each  question  answered. 

Now  there  is  one,  and  only  one,  objection 
that  can  logically  be  brought  against  rein- 
carnation, if  correctly  understood  as  The- 
osophy  teaches  it,  and  it  lies  in  the  question: 
^^If,  as  you  say,  I  have  lived  on  earth  in 
other  bodies,  why  don't  I  remember  the  past?'' 

Now  if  reincarnation  is  a  fact  in  nature, 
there  surely  will  be  enough  other  facts  that 
will  point  to  its  existence.  No  fact  in  nature 
is  isolated  and  it  is  possible  in  diverse  ways 
to  discover  that  fact.  Similarly  it  is  with  re- 
incarnation; there  are  indeed  enough  facts 
of  a  psychological  kind  to  prove  to  a  thinker 
that  reincarnation  must  be  a  fact  after  all 
and  not  a  theory. 

In  answering  the  question  why  we  do  not 
remember  our  past  lives,  surely  the  first 
necessary  point  is  to  ask  of  ourselves  what  we 


14  REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES 

mean  by  memory.  If  we  have  some  clear 
ideas  as  to  the  mechanism  of  memory,  per- 
haps we  may  be  able  to  understand  why  we 
do  not  (or  do)  ^'remember"  our  past  days  or 
lives.  Now,  briefly  speaking,  what  we  usu- 
ally mean  by  memory  is  a  summing  up.  If  I 
remember  to-day  the  incidents  of  my  cutting 
my  finger  yesterday,  there  will  be  two  ele- 
ments in  my  memory,  first  the  series  of  events 
that  went  to  produce  the  pain — the  misad- 
venture in  handling  the  knife,  the  cut,  the 
bleeding,  the  sensorial  reaction  of  the  brain, 
the  gesture,  and  so  on;  and  second  the  sense 
of  pain.  As  days  pass,  the  cause  of  the  pain 
recedes  into  the  periphery  of  consciousness, 
while  the  effect  as  pain  still  holds  the  center. 
Presently  we  shall  find  that  e  ven  the  memory 
of  the  pain  itself  recedes  into  the  background, 
leaving  behind  with  us  not  a  direct  memory 
as  an  event,  but  an  indirect  memory  as  a 
tendency — a  tendency  to  be  careful  in  the 
handling  of  all  cutting  implements.  Con- 
tinually this  process  is  taking  place ;  the  cause 
is  forgotten,  though  recoverable  under  hyp- 
nosis from  the  subconscious  mind,  while  the 
effect,  transmuted  into  tendency,  remains. 
It  is  here  that  we  are  specially  aided  by  the 


REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES 


15 


brain.  We  are  apt  to  think  of  the  brain  as  a 
recorder  of  memory,  without  realizing  that 
one  of  its  most  useful  functions  is  to  wipe  out 
memories.  The  brain  plays  the  dual  func- 
tion of  remembering  and  forgetting,  and  but 
for  our  ability  to  forget,  life  would  be  impos- 
sible. If  each  time  we  tried  to  move  a  limb, 
we  were  to  remember  all  our  infantile  ef- 
forts at  movement  and  the  hesitation  and 
doubt  and  perhaps  actual  pain  involved,  our 
consciousness  would  be  so  overwhelmed  by 
memories  that  the  necessary  movement  of 
the  limb  would  certainly  be  delayed,  or  not 
made  at  all.  Similarly  it  is  with  every  func- 
tion now  performed  automatically  which  was 
once  consciously  acquired;  it  is  because  we 
do  forget  the  process  of  acquiring,  that  we  can 
utilize  the  faculty. 

This  is  what  is  continuously  taking  place  in 
consciousness  with  each  one  of  us.  There  is  a 
process  of  exchange,  similar  to  copper  coins 
of  one  denomination  being  changed  to  silver 
coins  of  smaller  bulk  representing  them,  then 
into  gold  coins  of  smaller  weight  stilF,  and 
later  to  notes  representing  a  value,  and  last  of 
all  to  a  cheque-book  whose  intrinsic  worth, 
except  in  those  countries  that  have  stamp 


16  REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES 


duties,  is  nil.  Yet  we  have  but  to  write  our 
signature  on  a  cheque  to  put  into  operation 
the  whole  medium  of  exchange.  It  is  a  simi- 
lar process  that  takes  place  with  all  memories 
of  sensations,  feelings  and  thoughts.  These 
are  severally  grouped  into  categories  and 
transmuted  into  likes  and  dislikes,  and  into 
talents  and  faculties. 

Now  we  know  that  as  we  manifest  a  like  or 
dislike  or  exhibit  any  capacity,  we  are  re- 
membering our  past,  though  we  cannot  re- 
member in  detail  one  by  one  the  memories 
that  contribute  to  the  emotion  or  faculty.  If  I 
write  these  words  in  English  on  this  page,  I 
am  remembering  the  first  time  I  saw  each 
word  in  a  reading  book  and  looked  up  its 
meaning  in  a  dictionary  as  I  prepared  my 
home  lessons ;  but  it  is  a  kind  of  transmuted 
memory.  Nevertheless  I  do  remember,  and 
but  for  those  memories  being  somewhere  in 
my  consciousness  (whether  in  touch  with 
some  brain  cells  or  not  is  not  now  the  point) 
I  should  not  be  able  to  think  of  the  right  word 
to  express  my  thought  nor  shape  it  on  this 
paper  so  that  the  printer  would  recognize  the 
letters  to  set  them  up  in  print.  Furthermore 


REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES 


we  know  as  a  fact  that  we  forget  these 
causative  memories  one  by  one;  it  would  be 
foolish  if  as  I  write  a  particular  word  I  were 
to  try  to  call  up  the  memory  of  the  first  time 
I  saw  it.  The  brain  is  a  recording  instrument 
of  such  a  kind  that,  though  it  records,  it  does 
not  obey  the  consciousness  when  it  desires  to 
unroll  the  record,  except  in  certain  abnormal 
cases.  To  want  to  remember  is  not  necessarily 
followed  by  remembrance,  and  we  have  to 
take  this  fact  as  it  is. 

Here  it  is  that  Bergson  has  very  luminously 
pointed  out  that  "we  think  with  only  a  small 
part  of  the  past,  but  it  is  with  our  entire  past, 
including  the  original  bent  of  our  soul,  that  we 
desire,  will  and  act.^^  Clearly  then  it  would 
be  useless  to  try  to  remember  our  past  lives 
by  the  mere  exercise  of  the  mind;  though 
thought  can  recall  something  of  the  past,  it  is 
only  a  fraction  of  the  whole.  But  on  the  other 
hand,  let  us  but  feel  or  act,  and  then  at  once 
our  feeling  and  action  is  the  resultant  of  all 
the  forces  of  the  past  that  have  converged  on 
our  individuality.  If  therefore  we  are  to  trace 
memories  of  our  past  lives  in  our  present 
normal  consciousness,  we  must  note  how  we 
feel  and  act,  expecting  to  recover  little  of  such 


18  REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES 

memories  in  a  mere  mental  effort  to  remem- 
ber. 

Every  feeling  and  act,  then,  can  be  slowly 
traced  to  its  component  parts  of  impressions 
from  without  and  reactions  from  within.  So 
much  is  this  the  case  with  each  one  of  us, 
that  we  can  construct  for  ourselves  what  has 
been  another's  past  as  we  watch  that  other 
feel  and  act,  provided  he  does  both  in  an 
average  fashion.  But  if  he  manifests  a  mode 
that  is  not  the  average  mode  of  thought  or 
feeling,  then  he  becomes  incomprehensible 
and  needs  explanation.  Since  then  average 
feelings  and  actions  can  be  readily  explained 
as  the  result  of  average  experiences,  unusual 
feelings  and  actions  must  be  explained  as 
having  an  unusual  causation.  If  the  present 
writer  were  to  deliver  a  lecture  in  English  in 
India,  where  so  many  can  speak  English,  each 
of  his  listeners  would  take  for  granted  that 
he  had  been  to  school  and  college,  without 
perhaps  inquiring  further  when  and  where. 
But  were  he  instead  of  speaking  in  English  to 
speak  in  Italian,  at  once  then  each  would  be 
curious  to  know  how  and  when  that  faculty  of 
speaking  in  Italian  had  been  grown.  Further- 
more, if  an  Italian  were  present  in  the  audi- 


REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES  19 


ence,  he  would  know  that  the  speaker 
must  have  been  in  Italy  or  must  have  spent 
considerable  time  among  Italians.  Wherever 
there  is  any  manifestation  of  feeling  or  action 
— as  indeed  of  some  expressions  of  thought 
too — which  has  something  of  the  quality  of 
the  expert,  then  we  must  construct  for  that 
faculty  a  slow  growth  through  experiences 
that  result  from  experiments  along  that  par- 
ticular line. 

Now  each  one  of  us  has  qualities  of  an 
average  kind,  as  also  a  few  of  an  expert  kind. 
The  former  we  can  account  for  by  average 
experiences.  Let  us  examine  some  of  the  lat- 
ter, and  see  if  we  can  account  for  them  on  any 
other  hypothesis  than  that  of  reincarnation. 

Now  one  of  the  principal  things  that 
characterize  men  is  their  likes  and  dislikes. 
Sometimes  these  might  be  called  rational; 
that  is,  they  are  such  likes  and  dislikes  as  an 
average  typical  individual  of  his  particular 
species  might  be  said  normally  to  possess  at 
his  stage  in  evolution.  We  can  account  for 
these  normal  likes  and  dislikes,  because  they 
are  such  as  we  ourselves  manifest  under  simi- 
lar conditions,,  But-suppose  we  take  the  case 
of  an  extraordinary  liking,  such  as  is  termed 


20  REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES 

^^love  at  first  sight/'  Two  people  meet  in  the 
seeming  fortuitous  adjustment  of  human 
events,  sometimes,  it  may  be,  coming  from 
the  ends  of  the  earth.  They  know  nothing  of 
each  other,  and  yet  ensues  the  curious  phe- 
nomenon that  they  know  a  great  deal  of  each 
other.  Life  would  be  a  happy  thing  if  we 
could  go  out  with  deep  affection  to  all  we 
meet;  but  we  know  we  cannot,  it  is  not  in  our 
nature.  Why  then  should  it  be  in  our  nature 
to  "fall  in  love''  with  a  particular  individual? 
Why  should  we  be  ready  to  sacrifice  all  for 
this  person  whom,  in  this  life  at  least,  we 
have  met  but  a  few  times?  How  is  it  that  we 
seem  to  know  the  inner  working  of  his  heart 
and  brain  from  the  little  he  reveals  at  our 
conventional  intercourse  at  the  beginning? 
"railing  in  love"  is  indeed  a  mysterious 
psychological  phenomena,  but  the  process  is 
far  better  described  as  being  dragged  into 
love,  since  the  individual  is  forced  to  obey 
and  may  not  refrain.  Now  there  are  two 
logical  explanations  possible ;  one  is  the  ribald 
one  of  the  scoffer  that  it  is  some  form  of  hys- 
teria or  insanity,  due  it  may  be  to  a  microbe ; 
the  other  is  that  in  this  profound  going  forth 
of  one  individual,  as  an  expert  in  feeling, 


REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES  21 


towards  another,  we  have  not  a  first  meeting 
but  the  last  of  many  many  meetings  that  took 
place  in  past  lives.  Where  or  when  is  of  little 
consequence  to  the  lovers;  indeed  Rudyard 
Kipling  has  suggested  in  his  ^'Finest  Story  in 
the  World''  that  it  is  only  in  order  that  we 
might  not  miss  the  delicious  sensation  of  fall- 
ing in  love  with  our  beloved,  that  the  kindly 
gods  have  made  us  drink  of  the  river  of  for- 
getfulness  before  we  returned  to  life  on  earth. 
The  principal  thing  to  note  in  this  emotional 
mood  of  being  in  love  is  that  the  friendship  is 
not  as  one  that  begins,  but  as  one  that  is  con- 
tinued; and  in  that  psychological  attitude  of 
the  two  lovers  we  have  the  remembrance  of 
past  lives  when  they  met  and  loved  and  sac- 
rificed to  each  other. 

Not  dissimilar  to  this  unusual  liking  that 
is  falling  in  love  is  the  unusual  disliking  that 
is  not  so  very  rare  in  human  experience. 
Certain  nojmal  dislikes  we  can  readily  ac- 
count for;^^ut  take  the  case  of  two  individu- 
als meeting  for  the  first  time,  it  may  be  know- 
ing nothing  even  by  hearsay  of  each  other, 
and  then  we  have  sometimes  the  striking  phe- 
nomenon of  one  of  the  two  drawing  back  from 
the  other,  not  outwardly  by  gesture,  but  in- 


22  REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES 

wardly  by  a  feeling  or  an  intuition.  In  all 
such  cases  of  drawing  back  the  curious  thing 
is  that  there  is  no  personal  feeling;  it  is  not  a 
violent  feeling  of  '^I  do  not  like  you/^  but  far 
more  an  impersonal  state  of  mind  where  al- 
most no  feeling  manifests,  but  may  be  para- 
phrased into,  "It  is  wise  to  have  little  to  do 
with  you.'^  Sometimes  we  follow  this  in- 
tuition, but  usually  we  brush  it  aside  as  un- 
just, and  then  turn  to  understanding  our  ac- 
quaintance with  the  mind.  Not  infrequently 
it  then  follows  that  we  begin  to  like  him,  per- 
haps even  to  love  him.  We  forget  our  "first 
impression,'^  or  put  it  aside  as  mere  irrational 
impulse.  Now^  there  are  many  such  revul- 
sions that  are  purely  irrational  impulses,  but 
there  is  a  residue  of  cases  where  after-events 
show  that  the  dislike  was  not  an  impulse  but 
an  intuition.  For  it  may  happen,  after  years 
have  passed  of  intercourse  with  our  friend, 
that  suddenly  without  any  warning  he  as  it 
were  stabs  us  in  the  back  and  deals  us  a  mor- 
tal blow;  and  then  in  our  grief  and  humilia- 
tion we  remember  that  first  impression  of  ours 
and  wish  that  we  had  followed  it. 

Whence  came  this  first  impression?  Re- 
incarnation offers  a  solution,  which  is  that  the 


REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES  23 

injured  had  suffered  in  past  lives  at  the  hands 
of  the  injurer  and  it  is  the  memory  of  that 
.  suffering  that  flashes  to  the  mind  as  the  in- 
tuition. 

More  striking  still  are  those  cases  where 
there  exist  at  the  same  time  like  and  dislike, 
love  and  resentment.  The  writer  well  remem- 
bers a  lady  describing  her  attitude  to  a  friend 
to  whom  she  was  profoundly  attached  in  the 
following  words,  "I  love  him,  but  I  despise 
him!"  I  wonder  how  many  wives  say  this 
daily  of  their  husbands,  or  husbands  of  their 
wives.  Why  should  there  be  this  incompre- 
hensible jumble  of  contradictory  feelings? 

The  clue  is  strikingly  given  by  W.  E.  Hen- 
ley in  his  well-known  poem, 

Or  ever  the  knightly  years  were  gone 
With  the  old  world  to  the  grave, 

I  was  a  king  in  Babylon, 

And  you  were  a  Christian  slave. 

The  poet  goes  on  to  tell  us  how  the  king  "saw 
and  took,"  and  toyed  with  the  maid  and,  as  is 
a  man's  way,  finally  cast  her  aside.  But  she 
loved  him  well,  but  heart-broken  at  his  treat- 
ment committed  suicide.  Now  it  is  obvious 
that  the  girl  dies  full  of  both  love  and  resent- 


24  REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES 


ment,  and  since  what  we  sow  we  reap,  each 
in  the  rebirth  reaps  an  emotional  attitude  the 
result  of  past  causes.  For  this  time  the  man 
loves,  and  desires  to  possess  her;  she  loves 
him  in  return  and  yet  does  not  permit  him  to 
have  his  heart's  desire. 

The  pride  I  trampled  is  now  my  scathe, 

For  it  tramples  me  again; 
The  old  resentment  lasts  like  death, 

For  you  love,  and  yet  you  refrain; 
I  break  my  heart  on  your  hard  unfaith, 

And  I  break  my  heart  in  vain. 

Henley  sees  with  his  poetic  vision  that  the 
present  situation  as  between  the  two  cannot 
be  the  end  in  eternity;  there  must  be  a  true 
loving  and  understanding  of  each  other  at  the 
long  last;  and  so  the  poem  ends  with  the 
man's  pride  in  his  past,  and  resignation  in  the 
present, 

Yet  not  for  an  hour  do  I  wish  undone 

The  deed  beyond  the  grave, 
When  I  was  a  king  in  Babylon 

And  you  were  a  virgin  slave. 

There  can  only  be  one  ending,  that  of  the 
fairy  tale,  since  it  needs  must  be  a  universe 
where  there  is  One  who  loves,  that. 


REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES  25 


Journeys  end  in  lovers'  meeting 
Every  wise  man's  son  doth  know. 

We  have  so  far  been  considering  the  mani- 
festations of  an  individuaFs  emotional  nature, 
and  it  is  obvious  that  because  of  his  own  ex- 
periences he  will  be  able  to  understand  the 
emotions  of  others,  so  long  as  such  emotions 
are  in  the  main  of  like  nature.  But  what  of 
those  individuals  who  thoroughly  understand 
such  experiences  as  have  not  come  to  them? 
Shakespeare  understands  the  working  of  a 
woman's  heart  and  mind,  and,  too,  all 
the  intricate  mental  and  emotional  processes 
of  the  traitor;  Dickens  knows  how  the  mur- 
derer feels  after  committing  the  crime. 

Furthermore,  some  gifted  men  and  women, 
experiencing  emotions,  generalize  from  them 
to  what  is  experienced  by  all,  while  one  not  so 
gifted,  though  once  ^^bitten,''  is  not  twice 
^'shy,''  nor  is  made  appreciably  wiser  by  the 
same  experience  coming  to  him  over  and  over 
again.  The  gifted  few,  on  the  other  hand, 
will  fathom  the  universal  quality  in  a  single 
experience,  and  from  it  will  anticipate  many 
of  like  nature ;  for  themselves,  and  sometimes 
for  others  too,  they  will  state  their  experiences 


26  REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES 


reduced  to  algebraic  formulse,  as  it  were,  each 
formula  including  in  one  general  statement  all 
particular  cases.  Their  thoughts  and  feelings 
are  like  aphorisms,  with  the  transformation 
of  many  experiences  into  one  Experience. 

Now  to  generalize  from  our  particular  emo- 
tions is  as  rare  a  gift  as  to  originate  a  philos- 
ophy from  the  particular  thoughts  we  gain 
about  things.  Yet  it  is  this  generalization 
from  particular  emotions  that  is  characteris- 
tic of  a  poet,  and  the  more  universal  are  his 
generalizations  the  greater  is  he  as  poet.  Why 
then  should  an  individual  here  and  there  have 
this  wonderful  ability  of  seeing  particular 
men  as  representatives  of  types,  and  particu- 
lar emotions  as  expressions  of  universal  emo- 
tions? We  say  that  such  a  man  is  a  genius, 
but  the  word  genius  merely  describes  and 
does  not  explain.  There  are  geniuses  in  every 
department  of  life — religion,  poetry,  art,  mu- 
sic, statesmanship,  the  drama,  generalship  in 
war  and  in  commerce,  and  in  many  other 
phases  of  life.  These  geniuses  are  character- 
ized by  many  abnormal  qualities ;  they  are  al- 
ways men  of  the  future  and  not  of  their  day, 
and  each  genius  is  a  lawgiver  to  future  gener- 
ations in  his  own  department  of  activity;  and 


KEMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES 


27 


above  all,  they  live  emotionally  and  mentally 
in  wide  generalizations.  Whence  comes  this 
wonderful  ability? 

One  explanation  offered  is  Heredity.  But 
how  far  does  heredity  really  explain  genius? 
According  to  the  hitherto  accepted  theory  of 
heredity,  each  generation  adds  a  little  to  a 
quality  brought  from  the  generation  before, 
and  then  transmits  it  to  the  next ;  this  in  turn 
adds  a  little,  and  passes  on  the  total  of  what  it 
has  received  plus  its  own  contribution ;  and  so 
on  generation  after  generation,  till  we  arrive 
at  a  particular  generation,  and  one  individual 
of  it,  in  whom  the  special  quality  in  some 
mysterious  way  gets  concentrated,  and  that 
individual  is  thereby  a  genius.  According  to 
this  popular  theory,  some  remote  ancestor  of 
Shakespeare  had  a  fraction  of  Shakespeare^s 
genius,  which  he  transmitted  through  hered- 
ity to  his  offspring;  this  offspring  then,  keep- 
ing intact  what  was  given  him  by  his  parent, 
added  to  the  stock  from  his  own  experiences, 
and  then  passed  on  both  to  his  child;  and  so 
on  in  successive  generations,  each  generation 
treasuring  what  is  given  to  it  from  all  pre- 
vious generations,  and  adding  something  of 
its  own  before  transmitting  it  to  the  next. 


28  REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES 


Shakespeare  then  is  as  the  torrent  from  a 
reservoir  that  has  slowly  been  dammed  up, 
and  bursts  its  sides  when  the  pressure  has 
passed  beyond  a  certain  point. 

Such  a  conception  of  heredity  is  .based 
upon  the  assumption  that  what  an  individual 
acquires  of  faculty  as  the  result  of  adaptabil- 
ity to  his  environment  is  passed  on  to  his  off- 
spring. Such  is  indeed  the  conclusion  that 
the  Darwinian  school  of  biologists  came  to 
from  their  analysis  of  what  happens  in  na- 
ture. But  biological  research  during  the  last 
twenty-five  years  has  been  largely  directed  to 
testing  the  validity  of  the  theory  of  the  trans- 
mission of  acquired  characteristics,  and  not 
only  has  not  one  indisputable  instance  yet 
been  found,  but  all  experiments  in  breeding 
and  crossing  on  the  other  hand  accumulate 
proofs  to  the  contrary. 

The  new  school  of  biologists  known  as  the 
Mendelians  have  therefore  come  to  theories 
about  heredity  that  are  not  only  novel 
but  startling.  According  to  them,  struc- 
tural characteristics,  upon  which  must 
depend  the  mental  and  moral  capa- 
cities of  an  individual,  existed  in 
every  ancestor  in  their  fullness;  and  further 


REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES  29 


they  must  all  have  been  in  the  first  speck  of 
living  matter.  Nothing  has  been  added  by 
evolution  to  this  original  stock  of  capacities 
in  protoplasm,  and  every  genius  the  world  has 
known  or  will  know  existed  potentially  in  it, 
though  he  had  to  wait  millions  of  years  be- 
fore there  arose  the  appropriate  arrangement 
of  the  '^genetic  factors"  to  enable  him  to  ap- 
pear as  a  genius  on  the  evolutionary  stage. 
Nature  has  not  evolved  the  complex  brain 
structure  of  Shakespeare  out  of  the  rudimen- 
tary brains  of  the  mammals;  that  complexity 
existed  in  a  pin-head  of  protoplasm.  Nature 
has  not  evolved  the  genius;  she  has  merely 
released  him  from  the  fetters  that  bound  him 
in  the  primordial  protoplasm,  by  eliminating, 
generation  after  generation,  such  genetic  fac- 
tors as  inhibited  his  manifestation.  Bateson 
sums  up  these  modern  theories  when  he  says : 

I  have  confidence  that  the  artistic  gifts  of  mankind 
will  prove  to  be  due  not  to  something  added  to  the 
make-up  of  the  ordinary  man,  but  to  the  absence  of 
factors  which  in  the  normal  person  inhibit  the  de- 
velopment of  these  gifts.  They  are  almost  beyond 
doubt  to  be  looked  upon  as  releases  of  powers  nor- 
mally suppressed.  The  instrument  is  there,  but  it  is 
'^stopped  down."^ 

iPresidential  Address,  British  Association,  1914. 


30  REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES 


Time  alone  will  show  how  far  the  Mende- 
liari  conception  will  need  to  be  modified  by 
later  discoveries;  but  it  is  fairly  certain  al- 
ready that  the  older  Darwinian  conception  of 
heredity  is  untenable,  and  that  if  a  man  is  a 
genius  he  owes  very  little  to  the  intellectual 
and  emotional  achievements  of  his  ancestors. 
If,  however,  we  admit  with  the  Mendelians 
that  a  genius  is  "released"  merely  by  the  re- 
moval of  inhibiting  factors,  and  is  not  the 
result  of  slow  accumulations,  we  have  still  the 
original  mystery  unsolved,  and  that  is  to  ex- 
plain the  synthetic  ability  of  the  genius.  We 
are  therefore  no  nearer  really  explaining  the 
nature  of  genius  along  Mendelian  theories 
than  along  the  Darwinian;  the  theories  of 
science  merely  tell  us  under  what  conditions 
genius  will  or  will  not  manifest,  but  nothing 
more. 

The  only  rational  theory  of  genius,  that  ac- 
cepts scientific  facts  as  to  heredity  and  also 
explains  what  genius  is,  comes  from  the  con- 
ception of  reincarnation.  If  we  hold  that  an 
individual  is  a  soul,  that  is,  an  imperishable 
and  evolving  ego,  and  manifests  through  a 
body  appropriate  to  his  stage  of  growth  and  to 
a  work  he  is  to  do  in  that  body,  then  we  see 


REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES 


31 


that  his  emotional  and  mental  attributes  are 
the  results  of  experiences  he  has  gained  in 
past  lives ;  but  since  he  can  express  them  only 
through  a  suitable  body  and  brain,  these  then 
must  be  of  such  a  kind  as  nature  has  by 
heredity  selected  for  such  use.  The  manifesta- 
tion of  any  capacity  then  depends  on  two  in- 
dispensable factors,  first  an  ego  or  conscious- 
ness who  has  developed  that  capacity  by  re- 
peated experiments  in  past  lives,  and  second, 
a  suitable  instrument,  a  physical  body,  of 
such  a  nature  structurally  as  makes  possible 
the  expression  of  that  capacity.  When  there- 
fore we  consider  genius,  if  on  the  one  hand  a 
particular  genius  has  not  a  body  fash- 
ioned out  of  genetic  factors  that  do  not  inhibit 
his  genius,  he  is  ^'stopped  down,''  to  use  Bate- 
son's  simile,  and  his  genius  is  unreleased;  but 
if  on  the  other  hand  nature  were  to  produce  a 
thousand  bodies  that  were  not  "stopped 
down,  "we  should  not  ipso  facto  have  a  thou- 
sand geniuses.  Two  lines  of  evolution  must 
therefore  converge  before  there  can  manifest 
any  quality  that  is  not  purely  functional,  the 
first  being  that  of  the  evolution  of  an  inde- 
structible consciousness  that  continually  ex- 
periments with  life  and  slowly  becomes  ex- 


32  REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES 


pert  thereby,  and  the  second  the  evolution  of 
a  physical  structure,  that  by  heredity  is 
selected  to  respond  to  a  given  stimulus  from 
within. 

If,  with  this  clue  as  to  what  is  happening  in 
nature,  we  examine  the  various  geniuses  the 
world  has  produced,  we  shall  see  that  they  are 
remembering  their  past  lives  as  they  exhibit 
their  genius.  Take  for  instance  such  a  genius 
as  the  young  violinist,  Mischa  Elman,  who  a 
few  years  ago  began  his  musical  career;  he 
was  then  but  a  lad,  and  yet  even  at  that  age 
he  manifested  marvellous  technical  ability. 
Now  we  may  perhaps  legitimately  account  for 
this  technical  ability  along  Mendelian  lines, 
as  being  due  to  a  rare  confluence  of  genetic 
factors;  but  by  no  theory  of  physical  heredity 
can  we  explain  what  surprised  the  most  exact- 
ing of  musical  critics — Mischa  Elman's 
interpretation  of  music.  For  it  is  just  in  this 
interpretation  that  a  music  lover  can  see  the 
soul  of  the  performer,  whether  that  soul  is  a 
big  one  or  a  little,  whether  the  performer  has 
known  of  life  superficially  or  has  touched 
life's  core.  Now  Elman's  interpretation,  ab- 
solutely spontaneous  as  it  was,  and  unimi- 
tated  from  a  teacher,  was  that  of  a  man  and 


REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES  33 


not  that  of  a  boy.  Little  wonder  that  many  a 
critic  was  puzzled,  or  that  the  musical  critic 
of  the  London  Telegraph  should  write  as  fol- 
lows: 

Rain  beat  noisily  upon  the  roof  and  thunder  roared 
and  rattled,  but  Mischa  Elman  went  calmly  on  with 
his  prescribed  Paganini  and  Bach  and  Wieniawski. 
Calmly  is  the  word,  be  it  noted,  not  stolidly.  We  have 
had  stolid  wonder-children  on  our  musical  platforms; 
Mischa  is  not  of  them.  Upon  his  face,  as  he  plies 
the  bow,  rests  a  great  peace,  and  only  now  and  then, 
with  a  more  decided  expression,  does  he  lower  his 
cheek  upon  the  instrument,  as  though  he  would  re- 
ceive from  it  the  impulse  of  itsvibrations  and  to  it  com- 
municate his  own  soul  beats.  The  marvel  of  this  boy 
does  not  lie  in  his  execution  of  difficult  passages.  If 
it  did,  perhaps  we  should  award  it  but  perfunctory 
notice,  seeing  that  among  the  children  of  our  genera- 
tion there  are  so  many  who  play  with  difficult  pas- 
sages much  as  their  predecessors  did  with  marbles. 
We  have  gone  beyond  mere  dexterity  in  bowing  and 
fingering,  and  can  say,  in  the  spirit  of  one  of  old  time, 
that  from  the  babe  and  suckling  comes  now  the  per- 
fection of  such  praise  as  lies  within  the  compass  of  a 
violin. 

Asked  to  account  for  this — to  explain  why  Mischa 
Elman,  laying  cheek  to  wood,  reveals  the  insight  and 
feeling  of  a  man  who  has  risen  to  the  heights  and 
plumbed  the  depths  of  human  life — we  simply  ac- 
knowledge that  the  matter  is  beyond  us.  We  can  do 
no  more  than  speculate,  and,  perhaps,  hope  for  a  day 


34  REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES 


in  which  the  all-embracing  science  of  an  age  more 
advanced  than  our  own  shall  discover  the  particular 
brain  formation,  or  adjustment,  to  which  infants  owe 
the  powers  that  men  and  women  vainly  seek.  Those 
powers  may  be  the  Wordsworthian  '^clouds  of  glory," 
brought  from  another  world.  If  so,  what  a  brilliant 
birth  must  that  of  Mischa  Elman  have  been!  The 
boy  was  heard  in  a  work  by  Paganini  and  another  by 
Wieniawski,  both  good  things  of  their  meretricious 
kind,  and  both  irradiated,  as  we  could  not  but  fancy, 
by  the  unconscious  genius  which  shines  alike  on  the 
evil  and  the  good,  making  the  best  of  both.  Upon 
the  mere  execution  of  these  works  we  do  not  dwell, 
preferring  the  charm  of  the  moments  in  which  the 
music  lent  itself  to  the  mysterious  emotion  of  the 
youthful  player,  and  showed  not  the  painted  visage  of 
a  mountebank,  but  the  face  of  an  angel! 

If  along  lines  of  reincarnation  we  suppose 
that  Mischa  Elman  is  a  soul  who  in  his  past 
lives  has  in  truth  "risen  to  the  heights  and 
plumbed  the  depths  of  human  life/'  then  we 
have  a  reasonable  explanation  for  his  genius; 
in  each  interpretation  there  is  reflected  the 
summing  up  of  his  past  experiences,  and  he 
can  through  his  music  tell  us  of  a  man's  sor- 
row or  a  man's  joy  because  as  a  man  in  past 
lives  he  has  experienced  both,  and  retains 
their  memory  in  emotional  and  intellectual 
generalizations.    This    explanation  further 


REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES  35 


joins  hands  with  science,  because  the  reincar- 
nation theory  of  genius  implies  the  need  by 
the  musical  soul  of  a  body  with  a  musical 
heredity,  that  has  been  ''selected''  by  evolu- 
tion and  has  been  built  up  by  appropriate 
genetic  factors. 

Reincarnation  alone  explains  another 
genius  who  must  remain  a  puzzle  according 
to  all  other  theories.  Keats  is  known  in 
English  poetry  as  the  most  "Greek"  of  all 
England's  poets;  he  possessed  naturally  that 
unique  feeling  for  life  that  was  the  treasure 
of  the  Greek  temperament.  If  he  had  been 
a  Greek  scholar  and  steeped  in  the  traditions 
of  Greek  culture,  we  might  account  for  this 
''anima  naturaliter  Graeca  of  the  Greekless 
Keats."  But  when  we  consider  that  Keats 
had  "little  Latin  and  less  Greek,"  and  began 
life  as  a  surgeon's  apprentice  and  a  medical 
student,  we  may  well  wonder  why  he  sings 
not  as  a  Christian  poet  should  do,  but  as  some 
Greek  shepherd  born  on  the  slopes  of  Mt. 
Etna.  The  wonder  however  at  once  ceases 
if  we  presume  that  Keats  is  the  reincarnation 
of  a  Greek  poet,  and  is  remembering  his  past 
lives  as  he  reverts  to  Greek  ways  of  thought 
and  feeling. 


36  REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES 


With  reincarnation  as  a  clue  it  is  interest- 
ing to  see  how  a  little  analysis  enables  us  to 
say  where  in  the  past  an  individual  must  have 
lived.  In  the  culture  of  the  West,  there  are 
three  main  types  of  "reversion/'  to  Rome,  to 
Greece  and  to  India.  Any  one  who  has  stud- 
ied Roman  institutions  and  the  Roman  con- 
ception of  life  finds  little  difficulty  in  noting 
how  the  English  temperament  is  largely  that 
of  ancient  Rome  in  a  modern  garb;  the  val- 
ues, for  instance  in  history,  of  such  historians 
as  Gibbon,  Macauley,  Hume,  are  practically 
the  same  as  those  of  Roman  historians, 
Sallust,  Tacitus,  Livy,  and  the  rest;  whereas 
if  we  were  to  take  French  historians  we  shall 
find  them  scarcely  at  all  Roman  in  tempera- 
ment, and  far  more  akin  to  the  Greek.  The 
equation  Tennyson  =  Virgil  is  certainly  not 
far-fetched  to  those  who  know  the  quality  of 
both  poets. 

The  reversion  to  Greece  we  find  very  clear 
in  such  writers  as  Goethe,  Schiller,  Lessing. 
Why  should  these  writers  have  proclaimed  to 
Germany  with  unbounded  enthusiasm  the 
message  of  "back  to  Greece,''  but  that  they 
knew  from  their  own  experience  in  past  lives 
what  Greek  culture  had  still  for  men?  For 


REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES  37 

what  is  enthusiasm  but  the  springing  forward 
of  the  soul  to  experience  a  freshness  and  de- 
light in  life  that  it  has  known  elsewhere  and 
whose  call  it  recognizes  again?  These  men  of 
enthusiasm,  the  pioneers  of  the  future,  are  as 
sports  or  freaks  in  nature  otherwise;  let  us 
but  think  of  them  as  reincarnated  souls  re- 
membering in  their  enthusiasm  their  past 
lives,  and  they  become  not  sports  but  the  first- 
fruits  of  a  glorious  humanity  that  is  to  be. 

Who  that  has  studied  Platonism  has  not 
been  reminded  of  Platonic  conceptions  when 
reading  Emerson?  Though  Emerson  has  not 
the  originality  nor  the  daring  of  Plato,  yet  is 
he  truly  "Greek;''  it  does  not  require  such 
a  great  flight  of  the  imagination  to  see  him  as 
some  Alexandrian  follower  of  Plato.  How 
natural  then  too  that  Emerson  should  enter 
the  ministry  to  give  his  message,  but  should 
find  himself  unable  to  do  it  as  a  Christian 
minister,  and  should  strike  out  a  path  for 
himself  as  an  essayist  to  speak  of  the  World- 
Soul!  And  who  that  has  studied  Indian 
philosophies  does  not  recognize  old  Vedantin 
philosophers  in  Kant,  Fichte,  Hegel,  and  a 
Buddhist  philosopher  in  Schopenhauer,  all 
reverting  to  their  philosophic  interests  of  past 


38  REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES 


lives,  and  uttering  their  ancient  convictions 
more  brilliantly  than  ever  before?  Wherever 
the  deeper  layers  of  a  man^s  being  are  offered 
to  the  world  in  some  creation  through 
philosophy,  literature,  art,  or  science,  there 
may  we  note  tendencies  started  in  past  lives ; 
for  the  pageant  of  a  man's  life  is  not  planned 
and  achieved  in  the  few  brief  years  that  begin 
with  his  birth,  and  he  that  knows  of  reincar- 
nation may  note  readily  enough  where  the 
parts  of  that  pageant  were  composed. 

Reincarnation  as  it  affects  large  groups  of 
individuals  is  a  fascinating  study  to  one  with 
a  historical  bent  of  mind.  I  have  mentioned 
that  the  English  race  as  a  whole  is  largely  a 
reincarnation  of  the  ancient  Roman ;  but  here 
and  there  we  find  a  sprinkling  of  returned 
Greeks  in  men  like  Byron,  Ruskin,  Matthew 
Arnold,  and  in  those  English  men  and  women 
who  have  the  Greek  joy  of  life  and  are  as 
strangers  in  a  strange  land.  Let  a  returned 
Greek,  wherever  he  be  born  in  this  life,  but 
go  to  South  Italy  or  Greece,  and  he  will  be- 
gin to  remember  his  past  life  in  the  instinc- 
tife  familiarity  he  will  feel  with  the  hidden 
jBirit  of  tree  and  lake  and  hill ;  as  none  but  a 
^reek  can,  he  will  find  a  joy  in  the  sunshine, 


REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES  39 


in  the  lemon  groves  and  vineyards  and  water- 
falls that  in  a  Greek  land  give  the  message  of 
nature  as  in  no  other  land. 

Others  there  are  who,  born  last  life  in  the 
middle  ages  somewhere  in  Europe,  perhaps 
in  Italy  or  Spain  or  Germany,  when  they  re- 
visit the  land  of  their  former  birth,  will  have 
a  strange  familiarity  with  the  things  that  pass 
before  them.  In  striking  ways  they  read  into 
the  life  of  the  people,  and  understand  the  why 
of  things.  To  some  this  mysterious  sense  of 
recollection  may  be  strongest  in  Egypt,  or 
India,  or  Japan;  but  wherever  we  have  the 
intuitive  understanding  of  a  foreign  people, 
we  have  one  mode  of  remembering  our  past 
lives. 

It  is  in  the  characteristic  intellectual  attitude 
of  the  French  that  we  see  the  reincarnation 
of  much  that  was  developed  in  later  Greece. 
The  French  intellectual  clarity  and  dispas- 
sionate keenness  to  see  things  "as  they  are'' 
(whether  they  bring  material  benefits  or  not) 
is  typically  Greek.  And  perhaps,  could  we 
know  more  fully  of  the  life  of  the  Phoenicians, 
we  should  see  them  reborn  in  the  Germans 
of  today;  and  then  the  commercial  rivalry  be- 
tween England  and  Germany  for  the  capture 


40  REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES 

of  the  markets  of  the  East  would  be  but  the 
rebirth  of  the  ancient  rivalry  between  Rome 
and  Carthage  for  the  markets  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean. 

An  eruption  of  Greek  egos  is  fairly  evident 
in  the  United  States  of  America.  On  the  Pa- 
cific coast  specially  there  are  many  men  and 
women  of  the  simple  Greek  temperament  of 
the  pre-Periclean  age,  and  yet  their  ancestors 
were  not  infrequently  New  England  Puritans. 
It  is  in  America,  too,  we  have  the  Sophists  of 
Greece  in  full  strength  in  the  ^^New  Thought" 
writers  that  spring  up  in  that  land  month 
after  month.  In  them  we  have  the  same  char- 
acteristics as  had  the  Sophists  of  Greece — 
much  sound  sense  and  many  a  useful  wrinkle, 
an  independence  of  landmarks  and  traditions, 
an  unbounded  confidence  in  their  own  pan- 
acea, and  a  giving  of  their  message  of  the 
Spirit  "for  a  consideration.'^  The  lack  of  dis- 
tinction in  their  minds  in  Greece  between 
Sophism  and  Wisdom  returns  in  the  twen- 
tieth century  as  a  confusion  between  the  New 
Thought  ideas  of  the  Divine  Life  and  the  real 
life  of  the  Spirit.  Let  us  hope  that  as  the 
Sophists  helped  to  bring  in  the  Golden  Age  of 
Greece,  so  the  "New  Thought-ers"  are  the 


REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES  41 

forerunners  of  that  True  Thought  that  is  to 
dawn,  which  is  neither  old  nor  new. 

Here  and  there  in  India  we  find  one  who  is 
distinctly  not  Hindu.  For  the  most  part  the 
modern  Hindus  seem  scarce  to  have  been  in 
other  lands  in  their  late  incarnations;  but 
now  and  then  a  man  or  woman  is  met  with 
for  whom  the  sacrosanct  institutions  of  ortho- 
doxy have  no  meaning,  and  who  takes  up 
western  ideas  of  progress  with  avidity.  Some 
of  these  are  "England-returned,''  in  this 
present  incarnation,  and  we  can  thus  account 
for  their  mentality;  but  when  w^e  find  a  man 
who  has  never  left  India,  who  was  reared  in 
strict  orthodoxy,  and  yet  fights  with  enthusi- 
asm for  foreign  ways  of  thought,  surely  we 
have  here  a  "Europe-returned''  ego,  from 
Greece  or  Rome  or  from  some  other  of  the 
many  lands  of  the  West. 

We  must  not  forget  to  draw  attention  to  the 
egos  from  Greece  that  returned  to  Europe  to 
usher  in  the  age  of  art.  To  one  familiar  with 
Greek  sculpture  and  architecture  it  is  not  dif- 
ficult to  see  the  Greek  artists  reborn  in  the 
Italian  masters  of  painting  and  architecture. 
The  cult  is  no  longer  that  of  Pallas  Athene 
and  the  gods;  there  is  now  the  Virgin  Mary 


42  REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES 

and  the  saints  to  give  them  their  heavenly 
crowns.  Whence  did  the  Italian  masters 
gain  their  surety  of  touch  if  not  from  a  past 
birth  in  Greece?  It  is  striking,  too^  how  the 
Romans  who  excelled  in  portraiture  should  be 
reborn  in  the  English  School  of  portrait 
painters,  Gainsborough,  Reynolds,  Lawrence, 
and  the  rest. 

Nor  must  we  forget  the  band  of  Greeks  that 
like  an  inundation  swept  over  the  Elizabethan 
stage.  Marlowe,  Beaumont,  Fletcher,  Peele, 
Johnson,  and  the  rest — are  they  not  pagans 
thinly  veiled  in  English  garb?  They  felt  life 
in  un-English  modes ;  they  first  felt  and  then 
thought  out  the  feeling.  The  Greek  is  ever 
the  Greek,  whatsoever  the  language  that  is 
given  him  to  speak,  and  his  touch  in  litera- 
ture and  art  is  not  easily  veiled. 

Strong  impressions  made  on  the  conscious- 
ness in  a  past  life  appear  in  the  present  often 
in  some  curious  mood  or  mind.  Sometimes 
fears  of  creeping  things,  fire,  cutting  imple- 
ments, etc.,  are  thus  to  be  accounted  for, 
though  sometimes  these  "phobias''  may  only 
be  sub-conscious  remainders  of  this  life.  In 
the  cases  where  we  have  no  subconsciousness 
of  the  present  body  appearing,  there  is 


REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES  43 

sure  to  have  been  some  shock,  resulting 
it  may  be  in  a  violent  death,  in  a  past  life; 
and  the  after-effects  appear  now  in  an  uncon- 
trollable fear  or  in  discomfort  in  the  presence 
of  the  object  that  caused  the  shock.  More 
strange  is  the  attitude  of  one  individual  to 
another  brought  over  from  a  past  life; 
sometimes  one  sees  the  strange  sight  of  a  girl 
of  ten  or  twelve  taking  care  of  her  mother  in  a 
maternal  way,  as  though  the  positions  were 
reversed,  and  almost  as  if  she  had  the  onerous 
duty  of  bringing  up  her  mother  in  the  way 
she  should  go.  Of  a  deeper  psychological 
nature  is  it  when,  as  sometimes  happens,  a 
wife  mated  to  a  husband  that  causes  her  suf- 
fering finds  charity  towards  him  possible  only 
when  she  looks  on  him  not  as  her  husband  but 
as  her  child;  here  we  have  a  reminiscence  of 
a  life  when  he  was  indeed  her  child,  and  his 
better  nature  came  out  towards  her  in  the 
relation  that  he  bore  to  her  then. 

A  rather  humorous  instance  of  past  recol- 
lection is  found  when  there  has  been  betv/een 
the  last  life  and  this  a  change  of  sex  of  the 
body.  In  the  West  specially,  where  there  is  a 
more  marked  differentiation  temperamentally 
between  the  sexes  than  in  the  East,  not  in- 


44  REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES 

frequently  the  girl  who  dislikes  playing  with 
dolls,  delights  in  boy's  games,  and  is  a  pro- 
nounced tomboy,  is  really  an  ego  who  has  just 
taken  up  a  bod}^  of  the  sex  opposite  to  that 
with  which  he  has  been  familiar  for  many 
lives.  Many  a  girl  has  resented  her  skirts, 
and  it  takes  such  a  girl  several  years  before 
she  finally  resigns  herself  to  them.  Some 
women  there  are  on  whose  face  and  mode 
of  carriage  the  last  male  incarnation  seems 
still  fairly  visibly  portrayed,  as  indeed  a 
similar  thing  is  to  be  seen  in  some  men  who 
bring  into  this  life  traces  of  their  habits  of 
thought  and  feeling  when  last  they  had 
women's  bodies. 

A  consideration  of  the  many  psychological 
puzzles  I  have  enumerated  will  show  us  that 
as  a  matter  of  fact  people  do  remember  some- 
thing of  their  past  lives.  Truly  the  memory 
is  indirect,  as  a  habit  or  a  mood,  but  it  is 
memory  of  the  past  nevertheless.  Now  people 
willing  to  accept  reincarnation  as  a  fact  in 
life  naturally  ask  the  question,  ^^But  why 
don't  we  remember  fully  f  To  this  there  are 
two  answers,  the  first  of  which  is:  "It  is  best 
for  us  not  to  remember  directly  and  fully,  till 
we  are  ready  for  the  memories." 


REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES  45 

We  are  not  ready  for  remembrance  so  long 
as  we  are  influenced  by  the  memories  of  the 
past.  Where,  for  instance,  the  memory  is  of 
a  painful  event,  up  to  a  certain  point  the  past 
not  only  influences  our  present  but  also  our 
future,  and  in  a  harmful  way;  and  so  long  as 
we  have  not  gone  beyond  the  sphere  of  in- 
fluence of  the  past,  our  characters  are  weak- 
ened and  not  strengthened  by  remembrance. 
Let  us  take  an  extreme  case,  but  one  typical 
nevertheless.  Suppose  that  in  the  last  life  a 
man  has  committed  suicide  as  the  easiest  way 
out  of  his  diflGiculties.  As  he  dies,  there  will 
be  in  his  mind  much  mental  suffering  and  a 
lack  of  confidence  in  his  ability  to  weather 
the  storm.  The  suicide  does  not  put  an  end 
to  his  suffering,  and  after  death  it  will  con- 
tinue for  some  time  till  it  slowly  exhausts 
itself;  but  there  will  be  a  purification  through 
his  suffering,  and  when  it  ends  there  will  be 
a  keener  vision  and  a  fuller  response  to  the  ' 
promptings  of  his  higher  nature.  When  he 
is  reborn,  he  will  be  born  with  a  stronger  con- 
science; but  he  will  still  retain  the  lack  of 
confidence  in  his  ability,  because  nothing  has 
happened  after  his  death  to  alter  that.  Con- 
fidence can  be  gained  only  by  mastering  cir- 


46  REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES 

cumstance,  and  it  is  for  that  very  purpose  he 
has  returned.  Now,  sooner  or  later,  he  will  be 
confronted  with  a  situation  similar  to  that 
before  which  he  failed  in  a  past  life.  As  dif- 
ficulties crowd  round  him  in  the  new  life,  once 
more  there  will  be  the  old  struggle;  the  fact 
of  having  committed  suicide  will  now  come  in 
as  a  tendency  to  suicide,  as  a  resignation  to  it 
as  the  easiest  way;  but  on  the  other  hand  the 
memory  of  the  suffering  after  suicide  will  also 
return  in  a  stronger  sense  of  conscience  that 
this  time  it  must  not  be.  In  this  condition  of 
strain,  when  the  man  is  being  pulled  to  one 
side  by  the  past  and  to  the  other  by  his  future, 
if  he  were  to  know,  with  vivid  memory,  how 
he  had  committed  suicide  in  the  past  in  a  like 
situation,  the  probabilities  are  that  he  would 
be  influenced  by  his  past  action  and  his  lack 
of  confidence  would  be  intensified,  with  as  a 
result  suicide  once  again.  We  little  realize 
how  we  are  being  domineered  over  by  our 
past,  and  it  is  a  blessing  for  most  of  us  that 
the  kindly  gods  draw  a  veil  over  a  record 
which  at  our  present  stage  of  evolution 
cannot  be  anything  but  deplorable  in  many 
ways. 


REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES  47 


So  long  as  we  identify  ourselves  with  the 
past,  that  past  is  hidden  from  us,  except  in 
the  indirect  modes  as  tendencies.  But  the 
direct  memory  will  come  when  we  can 
dissociate  our  present  selves  from  our  past 
selves.  We  are  ever  the  Future,  not  the  past; 
and  when  we  can  look  at  our  past,  of  this  life 
first,  and  after  of  past  lives,  without  heat, 
impersonally,  in  perspective,  as  it  were,  like  a 
judge  who  has  no  sense  of  identity  with  the 
facts  before  him  for  judgment,  then  we  begin 
to  remember,  directly,  the  past  in  detail;  but 
till  then, 

We  ranging  down  this  lower  track, 

The  path  we  came  by,  thorn  and  flower, 
Is  shadow'd  by  the  growing  hour, 

Lest  life  should  fail  in  looking  back. 

The  second  reason  for  our  not  directly  re- 
membering our  past  lives  is  this:  the  I  who 
asks  the  question,  ''Why  don't  I  remember?" 
has  not  lived  in  the  past.  It  is  the  Soul  that 
has  lived,  not  this  I  with  all  its  limitations. 
But  is  not  this  I  that  Soul?  With  most  peo- 
ple not  at  all,  and  this  will  be  evident  if  we 
think  over  the  matter. 

The  average  man  or  woman  is  scarcely  so 


48  REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES 

much  a  Soul  as  a  bundle  of  attributes  of  sex, 
creed,  and  locality.  But  the  Soul  is  immortal, 
that  is,  has  no  sense  of  diminution  or  death ; 
it  has  no  idea  of  time,  that  it  is  young,  wastes 
away,  and  grows  old;  it  is  neither  man  nor 
woman,  because  it  is  developing  in  itself  the 
best  qualities  of  both  sexes;  it  is  neither 
Hindu,  nor  Buddhist,  nor  Christian,  because 
it  lives  in  One  Divine  Life  and  assimilates 
that  life  according  to  its  temperament;  it  is 
not  Indian,  nor  English,  nor  American,  and 
belongs  to  no  country,  even  though  its  outer- 
most sheath,  the  physical  body,  belongs  to  a 
particular  race;  it  has  no  caste,  for  it  knows 
that  all  partake  of  One  Life,  and  that  before 
God  there  is  neither  Brahman  nor  Shudra, 
Jew  nor  Gentile,  aristocrat  nor  plebian.  It 
is  this  Soul  that  puts  out  a  part  of  itself,  a 
personality,  for  a  life,  "as  a  mere  subject  for 
grave  experiment  and  experience;^'  through 
a  persona,  a  mask,  of  a  babe,  child,  youth  or 
maid,  man  or  woman,  bachelor,  spinster  or 
householder,  old  man  or  old  woman,  it  looks 
out  into  life,  and,  as  it  observes,  eliminates 
the  distorting  bias  its  outer  sheath  gives;  its 
personalities  have  been  Lemurian  or  Atlan- 
tean,  Hindu  or  Roman  or  Greek,  and  it  selects 


REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES  49 


the  best  out  of  them  all  and  discards  the  rest; 
all  literatures,  sciences,  arts,  religions  and 
civilizations  are  its  school  and  playground, 
workshop  and  study;  its  patriotism  is  for  an 
indivisible  Humanity,  and  its  creed  is  to  co- 
operate with  God's  plan,  which  is  Evolution. 

It  is  this  Soul  that  has  had  past  lives.  How 
much  of  this  Soul  are  we,  the  men  and  women 
who  ask  the  question,  '^Why  don't  we  remem- 
ber our  past  lives?''  The  questioner  is  but 
the  personality,  and  the  body  of  that  per- 
sonality has  a  brain  on  whose  cells  the  mem- 
ories of  a  past  life  have  not  been  impressed; 
those  memories  are  in  the  Divine  Man  who  is 
of  no  time,  of  no  creed,  and  of  no  land.  To 
remember  past  lives,  the  brain  of  the  per- 
sonality must  be  made  a  mirror  on  to  which 
can  be  reflected  the  memories  of  the  Soul; 
and  before  those  memories  can  come  into  the 
brain,  one  by  one  the  various  biases  must  be 
removed — of  mortality,  of  time,  of  sex,  of 
creed,  of  color,  of  caste.  So  long  as  we  are 
wrapt  up  in  our  petty  thoughts  of  nationalism 
and  in  our  narrow  beliefs  of  creeds,  so  long  do 
we  retain  the  barriers  that  exist  between  our 
higher  selves  and  our  lower;  an  intellectual 
breadth  and  a  larger  sympathy,  ^^without  dis- 


50  REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES 


tinction  of  race,  creed,  sex,  caste  or  color," 
must  first  be  achieved  before  there  breaks,  as 
through  clouds,  flashes  of  our  true  conscious- 
ness as  Souls.  There  is  no  swifter  way  to  dis- 
cover what  we  are  as  Immortals  out  of  time 
than  by  discovering  what  is  our  Work  in  time. 

Let  but  a  man  or  woman  find  that  Work 
for  whose  sake  sacrifice  and  immolation  is 
serenest  contentment,  then  slowly  the  larger 
consciousness  of  the  Soul  descends  into  the 
brain  of  the  personality,  and  with  that  de- 
scent the  direct  memory  of  past  lives.  As 
more  and  more  the  personality  presses  for- 
ward, desiring  no  light  but  what  is  sufiicient 
for  the  next  step  on  his  path  to  his  goal  of 
work,  slowly  one  bias  after  another  is  burnt 
away  in  a  fire  of  purification ;  like  as  the  sun 
dissipates  more  clouds  the  higher  it  rises,  so  is 
it  for  the  life  of  the  personality;  it  knows 
then,  with  such  conviction  as  the  sun  has 
about  its  own  nature  when  it  shines,  that  "the 
soul  of  man  is  immortal,  and  its  future  is  the 
future  of  a  thing  whose  growth  and  splendor 
have  no  limit." 

Then  come  back  the  memories  of  past  lives, 
and  how  they  come  those  who  live  the  life 
know.    There  are  many  kinds  of  knowledge 


REMEMBRANCE  OF  PAST  LIVES  51 


useful  for  a  man,  but  none  greater  than  the 
knowledge  "that  evolution  is  a  fact,  and  that 
the  method  of  evolution  is  the  constant  dip- 
ping down  into  matter  under  the  law  of  ad- 
justment/^ This  knowledge  is  for  all  who 
seek,  if  they  will  but  seek  rightly,  and  the 
right  way  is  to  be  a  brother  to  all  men,  "with- 
out distinction  of  race,  creed,  sex,  caste  or 
color." 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT 


The  history  of  humanity  is  the  history  of 
ideas,  and  the  stages  through  which  men  have 
risen  from  savage  to  civilized  are  dis- 
tinguishable one  from  the  other  by  the  influ- 
ence of  certain  great  doctrines.  Among  these 
teachings  that  have  moulded  civilizations,  the 
idea  of  Evolution  stands  out  as  heralding  a 
new  era  in  the  world  of  thought.  Considered 
at  first  as  a  mere  academic  interest,  soon  it 
was  recognized  as  of  practical  value,  and  to- 
day it  is  known  as  necessary  in  the  under- 
standing of  every  problem  in  every  depart- 
ment of  being. 

Nevertheless  it  is  a  fact  that  the  doctrine 
of  evolution  is  a  theory  after  all.  No  one  has 
lived  long  enough  to  see  sufiicient  links  in  the 
evolutionary  chain  to  attest  that  the  changes 
postulated  as  having  taken  place  did  actually 
so  occur,  and  that  the  chain  is  not  a  fancy  but 
a  fact.  Yet  evolution  is  accepted  by  all  as  a 


54  THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT 


dynamic  idea,  for  like  a  magic  wand  it  per- 
forms wonders  in  the  world  of  thought.  It 
marshals  the  heterogeneous  organisms  of  na- 
ture into  orderly  groups,  and  from  inanimate 
element  to  protoplasm,  from  unicellular  or- 
ganism to  multicellular,  from  invertebrate  to 
vertebrate,  from  ape  to  man,  one  ascending 
scale  of  life  is  seen. 

And  striving  to  be  man,  the  worm 
Mounts  through  all  the  spires  of  form. 

Yet  none  can  say  that  evolution  is  an  agree- 
able fact  to  contemplate,  for  there  is  a  ruth- 
lessness  to  nature's  methods  that  is  appalling. 
Utterly  cruel  and  wasteful  she  seems,  creating 
and  perfecting  her  creatures  only  to  prey  on 
each  other,  generating  more  than  can  live  in 
the  fierce  struggle  for  existence ;  ''red  in  tooth 
and  claw  with  ravin,''  she  builds  and  unbuilds 
and  builds  again,  one-pointed  only  that  a  type 
shall  survive  and  reckless  of  the  pleasure  or 
pain  to  a  single  life.  Men  themselves,  proud 
though  they  be  in  a  fancied  freedom  of 
thought  and  action,  are  nothing  but  pawns  in 
a  game  she  plays.  The  more  fully  evolution 
is  understood  from  such  facts  as  scientists 
have  so  far  gathered,  the  more  justifiably  can 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT  55 

men  say  with  Omar  of  their  birth,  life  and 
death : 

Into  this  Universe,  and  Why  not  knowing, 
Nor  Whence,  like  Water  willy-nilly  flowing, 

And  out  of  it,  like  Wind  along  the  Waste, 
I  know  not  Whither,  willy-nilly  blowing. 

Of  course  this  attitude  does  not  represent 
that  of  the  majority  of  men.  Millions  of  men 
believe  in  a  Creator  and  that  "God's  in  his 
heaven,  all's  right  with  the  world!"  But  it  is 
no  exaggeration  to  say  that  their  optimism 
continually  receives  rude  shocks.  No  man  or 
woman  of  sensibility  can  look  about  him  and 
not  agree  with  Tennyson's  comparison  of  life 
to  a  play: 

Act  first,  this  Earth,  a  stage  so  gloom'd  with  woe. 
You  all  but  sicken  at  the  shifting  scenes. 

And  yet  be  patient.  Our  Playwright  may  show 
In  some  fifth  Act  what  this  wild  Drama 
means. 

Both  the  idea  of  Evolution  and  the  idea  of 
a  Divine  Guidance,  as  at  present  conceived, 
fail  to  satisfy  fully  the  needs  of  men  for  an  in- 
spiring view  of  life.  The  former  indeed  shows 
a  splendid  pageant  of  nature,  but  it  has  no 
message  to  individual  man  except  to  make 


56 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT 


the  most  of  his  brief  day  of  life,  and  stoically 
resign  himself  to  extinction  when  nature 
shall  have  no  further  use  for  him.  The  latter 
speaks  to  men^s  hearts  in  alluring  accents  of 
a  power  that  maketh  for  righteousness,  but  it 
sees  God  as  existing  only  in  the  gaps  of  that 
pitiless  cosmic  order  that  science  reveals.  It 
is  obvious,  therefore,  that  any  philosophy 
which  postulates  an  inseparable  relation  be- 
tween God  and  evolution,  between  nature  and 
man,  is  worthy  of  examination,  and  this  is 
the  view  of  life  that  Theosophy  propounds  in 
the  light  of  one  great  idea. 

This  idea  is  that  of  the  Evolution  of  Life. 
Just  as  modern  science  tells  us  of  a  ceaseless 
change  of  forms  from  protoplasm  to  man,  so 
Theosophy  asserts  that  there  is,  pari  passu,  a 
changing,  growing  life.  This  life  does  not 
depend  on  the  forms,  though  we  see  it  asso- 
ciated with  them;  and  of  it  Theosophy  says 
that  first  it  is  indestructible,  and  second  that 
it  evolves. 

It  is  indestructible,  in  the  sense  that  when 
an  organism  is  destroyed,  nevertheless  all  is 
not  destroyed,  for  there  remains  a  life  that  is 
still  conscious.  If  a  rose  fades  and  its  petals 
crumble  and  fall  into  dust,  the  life  of  that  rose 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT  57 


has  not  therefore  ceased  to  be;  that  life  per- 
sists in  nature,  retaining  in  itself  all  the  mem- 
ories of  all  the  experiences  it  gained  garbed  as 
a  rose.  Then  in  due  course  of  events,  follow- 
ing laws  that  are  comprehensible,  that  life 
animates  another  rose  of  another  spring, 
bringing  to  its  second  embodiment  the  mem- 
ories of  its  first.  Whenever  therefore  there 
seems  the  death  of  a  living  thing,  crystal  or 
plant,  animal  or  man,  there  persists  an  inde- 
structible life  and  consciousness,  even  though 
to  all  appearance  the  object  is  lifeless  and 
processes  of  decay  have  begun. 

Further,  this  life  is  evolving  in  exactly  the 
same  way  that  the  scientist  says  that  an  or- 
ganism evolves.  The  life  is  at  first  amorphic, 
responding  but  little  to  the  stimuli  from  with- 
out, retaining  only  feeble  memories  of  the  ex- 
periences it  gains  through  its  successive  em- 
bodiments. But  it  passes  from  stage  to  stage 
through  more  and  more  complex  organisms, 
till  slowly  it  becomes  more  definite,  more  di- 
verse in  its  functions;  as  the  outer  form 
evolves  from  protoplasm  to  man,  so  evolves 
too  the  life  ensouling  it.  All  nature,  visible 
and  invisible,  is  the  field  of  an  evolution  of 
life  through  successive  series  of  evolving 


58  THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT 


forms,  and  the  broad  stages  of  this  evolving 
life  are  from  mineral  to  vegetable,  from  vege- 
table to  animal,  and  from  animal  to  man. 

The  doctrine  of  a  life  that  evolves  through 
evolving  forms  answers  some  of  those  ques- 
tions that  puzzle  the  biologist  today.  Many 
a  fact  hitherto  considered  as  outside  the  do- 
main of  science  is  seen  as  illustrative  of  new 
laws,  and  existing  gaps  are  bridged  over  to 
make  the  doctrine  of  evolution  more  logical 
than  ever.  It  further  shows  nature  as  not 
wasteful  and  only  seemingly  cruel,  for  noth- 
ing is  lost,  and  every  experience  in  every  form 
that  was  destroyed  in  the  process  of  natural 
selection  is  treasured  by  the  life  to-day.  The 
past  lives  in  the  present  to  attest  that  nature^s 
purpose  is  not  death  crushing  life,  but  life 
ever  triumphant  over  death  to  make  out  of 
stocks  and  stones  immortal  men. 

In  each  human  being  is  seen  this  same  prin- 
ciple of  an  imperishable  evolving  life.  For 
man  is  an  individual  life  and  consciousness, 
an  immortal  soul  capable  of  living  apart  from 
the  body  we  usually  call  ^^the  man.^^  In  each 
soul  the  process  of  evolution  is  at  work,  for  at 
his  entrance  on  existence  as  a  soul,  he  is  feeble 
and  chaotic  in  his  consciousness,  vague  and 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT 


59 


indefinite  in  his  understanding  of  the  mean- 
ing of  life,  and  capable  only  of  a  narrow  range 
of  thought  and  feeling.  But  he  too  evolves, 
from  indefinite  to  definite,  from  simple  to 
complex,  from  chaos  to  order. 

Man's  evolution  is  by  successive  manifesta- 
tions in  bodies  of  flesh,  passing  at  the  death  of 
one  body  to  begin  life  once  more  in  another 
new  one ;  and  in  this  passage  he  carries  with 
him  the  memory  of  all  experiences  he  has 
gained  in  the  past  behind  him.  This  aspect 
of  the  evolution  of  life  as  it  affects  men  is 
called  reincarnation. 

As  all  processes  of  nature  are  intelligible  on 
the  hypothesis  of  an  evolution  of  organisms, 
so  all  that  happens  to  men  becomes  compre- 
hensible in  the  light  of  reincarnation ;  as  the 
former  links  all  forms  by  species  and  genus, 
family  and  order,  class  and  group,  sub-king- 
dom and  kingdom  into  one  unbreakable  chain, 
so  the  latter  binds  all  human  experiences  into 
one  consistent  philosophy  of  life.  How  re- 
incarnation explains  the  mysteries  around  us 
and  inspires  us  we  shall  now  see. 

Imagine  with  me  that  existence  is  a  moun- 
tain, and  that  millions  are  climbing  to  its 
summit.   Let  many  many  days  be  needed 


60 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT 


before  a  traveller  comes  to  his  goal.  Then  as 
he  climbs  day  after  day,  the  proportion  of 
things  below  him  and  above  him  will  change  ; 
new  sights  will  greet  his  eyes,  new  airs  will 
breathe  around  him;  his  eyes  will  adjust 
themselves  to  new  horizons,  and  step  by  step 
objects  will  change  in  shape  and  proportion. 
At  last  on  reaching  the  summit  a  vast  pan- 
objects  will  change  shape  and  proportion, 
clearly  every  part  of  the  road  he  climbed,  and 
why  it  dipped  into  this  valley  and  circled  that 
crag.  Let  this  mountain  typify  existence, 
and  let  the  climbers  up  its  sides  be  men  and 
women  who  are  immortal  souls. 

Let  us  now  think  for  a  moment  of  travellers 
at  the  mountain's  base,  who  are  to  climb  to 
its  summit.  We  know  how  limited  must  be 
their  horizon  and  how  little  they  can  see  of 
the  long  path  before  them.  Let  such  travellers 
typify  the  most  backward  of  our  humanity, 
the  most  savage  and  least  intelligent  men  and 
women  we  can  find  to-day.  According  to  re- 
incarnation these  are  child-souls,  just  enter- 
ing into  existence  to  undergo  evolution  and  to 
be  made  into  perfect  souls.  To  understand 
the  process  of  evolution  let  us  watch  one  of 
them  stage  by  stage  as  he  climbs  the  moun- 
tain. 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT  61 


The  first  thing  that  we  shall  note  is  that 
this  child-soul  manifests  a  duality.  For  he  is 
soul  and  body;  as  a  soul  he  is  from  God  but 
as  a  body  he  is  from  the  brute. 

The  Lord  let  the  house  of  a  brute  to  the  soul  of  a 
man, 

And  the  man  said,  "Am  I  your  debtor?" 

And  the  Lord — ^'Not  yet:  but  make  it  as  clean  as 

you  can, 
And  then  I  will  let  you  a  better." 

The  body  he  occupies  has  in  it  a  strong  in- 
stinct of  self-preservation,  stamped  upon  it 
by  the  fierce  struggle  for  existence  of  its  ani- 
mal progenitors ;  he  himself  as  a  soul  coming 
from  God  has  intuitions  as  to  right  and 
wrong,  but  as  yet  hardly  any  will.  The  body 
demands  for  its  preservation  that  he  be  self- 
assertive  and  selfish;  lacking  the  will  to  di- 
rect his  evolution,  he  acts  as  the  body  im- 
pels. 

The  Vision  of  the  Separated  Self 
Hence  at  this  earliest  stage  of  the  soul  his 
vision  of  life  as  he  climbs  is  that  of  the  sepa- 
rated self:  ^'Mine  not  yours"  is  his  principle  of 
action ;  greed  rules  him  and  a  thirst  for  sensa- 
tion drives  him  on,  and  he  little  heeds  that  he 


62 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT 


is  unjust  and  cruel  to  others  as  he  lives 
through  his  nights  and  days  of  selfishness  and 
self-assertion.  He  seems  strong-willed,  for  he 
crushes  the  weaker  before  him ;  but  in  reality 
he  has  no  will  at  all,  for  he  is  but  the  play- 
thing of  an  animal  heredity  he  cannot  control. 
He  has  no  more  freedom  of  will  than  the 
water-wheel  that  turns  at  the  bidding  of  the 
descending  stream;  he  is  but  the  tool  of  a 
"will  to  live'^  that  accomplishes  a  purpose  not 
his  own. 

Millions  of  men  and  women  around  us  are 
at  this  first  stage.  Their  craftiness,  hardly 
deserving  the  name  of  intellect,  is  that  of  a 
Falstaff  for  whom  "the  world  is  mine  oyster 
which  I  with  sword  will  open.''  In  their  least 
animal  phases  comfort  is  their  aim  in  life: 
"They  dressed,  digested,  talked,  articulated 
words;  other  vitality  showed  they  almost 
none.''  The  universe  around  them  is  mean- 
ingless, and  they  are  scarce  capable  of  won- 
der: "Let  but  a  Rising  of  the  Sun,  let  but  a 
creation  of  the  world  happen  twice,  and  it 
ceases  to  be  marvellous,  to  be  noteworthy  or 
noticeable."  The  center  of  the  circle  of  the 
cosmos  is  in  themselves  and  they  neither 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT  63 


know  nor  care  if  another  and  truer  centre  be 
possible. 

Yet  when  we  recognize  that  each  of  these 
souls  is  immortal  and  that  his  future  is  ''the 
future  of  a  thing  whose  growth  and  splendor 
have  no  limit/'  we  begin  to  understand  why 
at  this  early  stage  selfishness  plays  such  a 
prominent  part  in  his  life.  For  in  the  stages 
to  come  he  must  be  capable  of  standing  alone, 
firm  on  the  basis  of  a  coherent  individuality; 
Qow  it  is,  therefore,  he  must  develop  initia- 
tive and  strength.  He  is  quick  to  retaliate, 
but  the  germs  of  swift  decision  are  grown 
thereby;  he  is  domineering  and  cruel,  but  the 
seeds  of  intelligent  enterprise  result  from  the 
animal  cunning  he  displays.  Every  evil  he 
does  must  some  time  be  paid  back  in  labor- 
ious service  to  his  victims;  yet  on  the  whole 
the  evil  he  does  at  this  stage  is  less  in  quan- 
tity and  force,  for  all  its  seeming,  than  that 
done  in  later  stages  where  intelligence  is 
keener  and  emotion  more  powerful.  At  a  cer- 
tain period  in  human  evolution  selfishness 
has  its  place  in  the  economy  of  things,  for 
selfishness  too  is  a  force  used  to  build  the  bat- 
tlements of  heaven. 


64 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT 


These  souls,  whose  youth  alone  is  the  cause 
of  their  selfishness,  are  in  their  essence  di- 
vine, and  there  is  in  them  no  evil  of  a  positive 
kind;  the  vices  are  but  the  result  of  the  ab- 
sence of  virtues,  and  the  evil  "is  null,  is 
naught,  is  silence  implying  sound/'  Each  is 
a  "good  man"  who,  deep  down  within  him, 
has  a  knowledge  of  "the  one  true  way,'' 
though  in  his  attempts  to  tread  it  he  seems  to 
retrograde  rather  than  to  evolve.  Like  plants 
in  a  garden  they  are  all  tended  by  Him  from 
Whom  they  come ;  He  knows  the  perfect  souls 
that  He  will  make  out  of  them  by  change  and 
growth  as  the  ages  pass  by. 

Though  still  confused  his  service  unto  Me, 

I  soon  shall  lead  him  to  a  clearer  morning. 
Sees  not  the  gardener,  even  while  he  buds  his  tree. 
Both  flower  and  fruit  the  future  years  adorning? 
Life  after  life  these  souls  come  to  birth, 
now  as  men  and  now  as  women;  they  live  a 
life  of  selfishness,  and  they  die,  and  hardly 
any  change  will  be  noticeable  in  the  char- 
acter; but  slowly  there  steals  into  their  lives 
a  dissatisfaction.    The  mind  is  too  dull  to 
grasp  the  relation  of  the  individual  to  the 
whole,  and  the  imagination  is  too  feeble  to 
realize  that  "man  doth  not  live  by  bread 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT  65 


alone."  Hence  it  is  that  "the  thousand  nat- 
ural shocks  that  flesh  is  heir  to"  are  duly 
marshalled  and  employed  to  ruffle  their  self- 
centered  contentment;  old  age  and  death  cast 
over  them  shadows  that  have  no  power  to 
sadden  a  philosophic  mind;  disease  and  ac- 
cident lie  in  wait  for  them  to  weigh  down 
their  spirits  and  make  them  rebel  against  a 
fate  they  do  not  understand.  Till  their  hearts 
shall  enshrine  a  divine  purpose,  a  Hound  of 
Heaven  pursues  them^  and  "naught  shelters 
thee,  who  wilt  not  shelter  Me." 

Thus  are  they  made  ready  to  pass  on  to  the 
next  stage;  the  foundations  of  abilities  have 
been  laid,  and  the  individual  is  firm  on  a  basis 
built  through  selfishness.  Now  has  come  the 
time  to  begin  the  laborious  work  of  casting 
out  the  self,  and  so  there  opens  before  the 
souFs  gaze  the  vision  of  the  next  stage.  Ac- 
cording to  the  type  of  soul,  this  vision  is 
either  the  Vision  of  the  Mind  or  the  Vision  of 
the  Emotions. 

There  are  in  life  two  main  types  of  souls, 
the  one  in  whom  intelligence  controls  emo- 
tion and  the  other  in  whom  emotion  sways 
the  mind.  One  type  is  not  more  evolved  than 
the  other;  they  are  both  stages  to  pass 


66 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT 


through  to  grow  a  higher  faculty,  that  of  In- 
tuition. The  vision  of  the  third  stage  is  the 
Vision  of  the  Intuition,  but  to  it  souls  come 
from  the  first  stage  either  through  intellect 
or  through  emotion.  Let  us  first  consider 
those  souls  whose  evolution  is  by  way  of  the 
intellect. 

The  Vision  of  the  Mind 
We  shall  see  in  the  past  of  these  souls  that 
much  intelligence  has  been  developed  in  the 
first  stage;  their  selfishness  has  made  them 
quick  and  cunning  to  adapt  opportunities  to 
minister  to  their  comfort.  This  intelligence 
is  now  taken  up  by  the  unseen  Guides  of 
evolution,  and  the  soul  is  placed  in  environ- 
ments that  will  change  mere  animal  cunning 
into  true  intellect.  The  past  good  and  evil 
sown  by  him  will  be  adjusted  in  its  reaping, 
so  as  to  give  him  occupations  and  interests 
that  will  force  him  to  think  of  men  and  things 
around  him  apart  from  their  relation  to  him- 
self. Instead  of  weighing  experiences  in 
terms  of  personal  comfort  he  begins  now  to 
group  them  in  types  and  categories;  little  by 
little  he  begins  to  see  a  material  and  moral 
order  in  the  cosmos  that  is  more  powerful 
than  his  will.  Each  law  of  nature  when  first 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT  67 


seen  is  feared  by  him,  for  it  seems  to  be  there 
to  thwart  him;  but  later,  with  more  expe- 
rience of  its  working,  he  begins  to  trust  it 
and  to  depend  upon  it  to  achieve  his  aim.  A 
love  of  learning  appears  in  him  and  nature  is 
no  longer  a  blank  page;  he  has  ceased  to  be  '^a 
pair  of  spectacles  behind  which  there  is  no 
eye/' 

At  this  stage  we  shall  see  that  the  selfish- 
ness still  in  him  will  warp  the  judgments  of 
his  mind.  He  will  be  a  doctrinaire,  a  pedant, 
combative  and  full  of  prejudice;  for  all  his 
intellect  his  character  will  show  marked 
weaknesses,  and  he  will  often  see  and  pro- 
pound principles  of  conduct  which  he  will  not 
be  able  to  apply  to  himself.  Again  and  again 
he  will  fail  to  see  how  little  he  understands 
the  world,  since  the  world  is  the  embodiment 
of  a  life  that  is  more  than  mind,  and  whoso 
understands  it  with  mind  alone  will  mis- 
understand. Excess  of  intellect  will  become 
in  him  defect  of  intelligence,  and  he  will  see 
all  things  as  through  a  glass  darkly. 

Many  a  life  will  pass  while  he  slowly  gains 
experiences  through  the  mind  and  assimilates 
them  into  a  truer  conception  of  life.  By  now 
he  will  have  begun  to  take  part  in  the  intel- 


68  THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT 


lectual  life  of  the  world,  and  when  he  is  on 
the  threshold  of  the  next  stage  we  shall  find 
him  as  a  worker  in  science,  philosophy  or 
literature.  But  his  intellect  has  too  great  a 
personal  bias  still,  and  it  must  be  made  im- 
personal and  pure  before  the  next  vision,  that 
of  the  intuition,  can  be  his.  Once  again  we 
shall  see  that  there  enters  into  his  life  a  dis- 
satisfaction. The  structures  which  he  builds 
so  laboriously  as  the  results  of  years  of  work 
will  crumble  one  by  one,  because  nature  re- 
veals new  facts  to  show  the  world  that  his 
generalizations  were  only  partly  true;  the 
world  for  which  he  toiled  will  forget  him  and 
younger  workers  will  receive  the  honors  that 
are  his  due.  He  will  be  misunderstood  by  his 
dearest  friends,  and  '^he  is  now,  if  not  ceasing, 
yet  intermitting  to  eat  his  own  heart,  and 
clutches  round  him  outwardly  on  the  Not-Me 
for  wholesomer  food." 

But  this  suffering,  through  the  reaping  of 
sad  sowings  of  injustice  to  others  through 
prejudice,  brings  in  its  train  a  high  purifica- 
tion sooner  or  later;  the  soul  learns  the  great 
lesson  of  working  for  work's  sake  and  not  for 
the  fruit  of  action.  Now  he  knows  the  joy  of 
altruistic  dedication  of  himself  to  the  search 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT  69 


for  truth.  A  student  of  philosophies  but  the 
slave  of  none,  he  now  watches  nature  "as  it 
is,"  and  in  a  perfect  impersonality  of  mind 
solves  her  mysteries  one  by  one ;  of  him  now 
can  it  be  said  with  the  Pythagoreans  that  "a 
great  intellect  is  the  chorus  of  divinity."  Thus 
dawns  for  him  the  Vision  of  the  Intuition. 

The  Vision  of  the  Emotions 
I  mentioned  when  describing  the  transition 
from  the  first  stage  to  the  second  that  there 
were  in  the  world  two  main  types  of  souls — 
those  who  pass  from  the  Vision  of  the  Sep- 
arated Self  to  the  Vision  of  the  Intuition  by 
way  of  the  mind,  and  those  others  who  de- 
velop along  a  parallel  path  and  pass  from  the 
emotions  to  the  intuition.  We  have  just  seen 
how  souls  are  trained  through  intellect  to  cast 
out  the  self;  we  shall  now  see  how  the  same 
result  is  achieved  for  those  in  whom  emo- 
tions sway  the  mind. 

As  the  intellectual  type  showed  in  the  first 
stage  a  marked  development  of  intelligence  of 
a  low  kind,  so  similarly  shall  we  find  that  the 
souls  we  are  going  to  consider  show  during  the 
same  stage  a  great  deal  of  feeling.  Not  that 
this  feeling  will  be  refined  or  unselfish ;  indeed 
it  will  mostly  be  lust  and  jealousy,  with  per- 


70 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT 


haps  a  little  crude  religious  emotion  thrown 
in.  But  the  character  will  be  obviously  easily 
swayed  by  emotions,  and  this  trait  in  the  soul 
is  now  taken  up  and  worked  upon  to  enable 
him  to  pass  to  the  next  stage. 

Following  his  emotional  bent,  and  selfish 
and  oblivious  of  the  feelings  of  those  around 
him,  the  soul  will  compel  others  weaker  than 
himself  to  be  the  slaves  of  his  desires;  but 
the  passion  and  the  sense  of  possession  he  has 
of  these  that  minister  to  his  lusts  will  link  him 
to  them  life  after  life,  till  slowly  he  begins  to 
feel  that  they  are  necessary  to  his  emotional 
life  and  not  dispensable  at  will.  Gradually 
his  impure  passions  will  be  transformed  into 
purer  affections,  and  then  he  will  be  brought 
again  and  again  into  contact  with  them  so 
that  his  emotions  shall  go  out  impulsively 
towards  them.  But  the  evil  he  wrought  them 
in  the  past  will  now  cast  a  veil  over  their 
eyes  and  make  them  indifferent  to  him.  He 
will  be  forced  to  love  on,  to  atone  for  past  evil 
by  service,  but  despair  will  be  the  only 
reward;  when  in  resentment  he  tries  to  break 
the  bond  that  ties  him  to  them  he  will  find  he 
cannot.    He  will  curse  love,  only  to  return 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT 


71 


again  and  again  to  love's  altar  with  his  offer- 
ings. 

Though  life  now  becomes  full  of  disap- 
pointment and  despair,  in  his  serener  mo- 
ments he  will  acknowledge  that  in  spite  of  the 
suffering  it  entailed,  his  emotional  life  has 
slowly  opened  a  new  sense  in  him.  He  catches 
now  and  then  glimpses  of  an  undying  youth 
in  all  things,  and  the  world  that  seems  dreary 
and  aging  will  re-appear  under  certain  emo- 
tional stress  as  he  knew  it  before  life  became 
a  tragedy.  These  glimpses  are  transitory  at 
first,  lasting  indeed  only  so  long  as  the  love 
emotion  colors  his  being;  but  there  is  for  him 
a  time, 

When  all  the  world  is  young,  lad, 

And  all  the  trees  are  green, 
And  every  goose  a  swan,  lad, 

And  every  lass  a  queen. 

Life  after  life,  fostered  by  his  transitory 
loves,  this  sense  will  grow  in  him  till  it  blos- 
soms into  a  sense  of  wonder.  Then  nature 
reveals  in  all  things  in  life  new  values  whose 
significance  he  can  henceforth  never  wholly 
forget.  While  love  sways  his  being  each  blade 
of  grass  and  leaf  and  flower  has  to  him  a  new 


72 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT 


meaning;  he  sees  beauty  now  where  he  saw 
none  before.  Everything  beautiful  around 
him — a  face,  a  flower,  a  sunset,  a  melody — 
will  link  him  in  mysterious  ways  to  those  he 
loves;  the  world  ceases  to  be  a  blank  page. 

Love  wakes  men  once  a  lifetime  each, 

They  lift  their  heavy  lids  and  look; 
And  lo  I  what  one  sweet  page  can  teach, 

They  read  with  joy,  then  close  the  book. 
And  some  give  thanks,  and  some  blaspheme, 

And  most  forget.  But  either  way, 
That  and  the  child^s  unheeding  dream 

Is  all  the  light  of  all  their  day. 

It  will  happen  that  this  sense  of  wonder  is 
intermittent,  and  that  there  come  periods 
when  the  world  is  veiled;  but  the  veil  is  of  his 
own  making,  and  must  be  torn  asunder  if  he 
is  to  possess  the  Vision  of  the  Intuition.  Once 
more  there  enters  into  his  life  a  dissatisfac- 
tion— a  discontent  that  love  itself  is  transi- 
tory after  all.  Those  he  loves  and  who  love 
him  in  return  will  be  taken  from  him  just 
when  life  seems  in  flower;  friends  he  idealizes 
will  shatter  the  ideals  so  lovingly  made  of 
them.  Cruel  as  it  aU  seems,  it  is  but  the  reap- 
ing of  sad  sowings  in  past  lives,  but  the  reap- 
ing has  a  meaning  now  as  always.  He  has  so 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT  73 


far  been  loving  not  Love  but  its  shadow,  not 
the  Ideal  from  which  nothing  can  be  taken 
away  but  its  counterfeit  which  suffers  di- 
minution; he  must  now  see  clearer  and  feel 
truer.  The  character  must  be  steadied  so  that 
it  shall  not  rebound  from  enthusiasm  to  de- 
pression, nor  be  satisfied  with  a  vague  mysti- 
cism that  prefers  to  revel  in  its  own  feelings 
rather  than  evaluate  what  causes  them. 

Hence  the  inevitable  purification  through 
suffering;  the  dross  of  self  is  burned  away  till 
there  remains  the  gold  of  a  divine  desire.  He 
then  discovers  that  the  truest  feelings  are 
only  those  that  have  in  them  the  spirit  of 
offering.  Now  for  him  thus  purified  in  de- 
sire, and  for  that  other  type  of  soul  made  im- 
personal in  intellect,  there  dawns  the  Vision 
of  the  Intuition. 

The  Vision  of  the  Intuition 
'^Before  the  eyes  can  see,  they  must  be  in- 
capable of  tears.  Before  the  ear  can  hear,  it 
must  have  lost  its  sensitiveness.^'  All  souls 
that  have  come  to  this  stage  have  learned  by 
now  the  bitter  lesson  that  '^it  is  only  with 
Renunciation  that  Life,  properly  speaking, 
can  be  said  to  begin;"  they  have  proved  in 
their  own  experience  that  what  once  seemed 


74  THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT 


death  was  but  a  ^^repentance  unto  life/'  They 
have  now  discovered  the  meaning  of  life — 
that  man  is  a  child  of  God  come  forth  to  life 
to  be  a  co-worker  with  his  Father.  It  matters 
not  that  a  soul  does  not  state  to  himself  his 
relation  to  the  whole  in  these  terms;  it  only- 
matters  that  he  should  have  discovered  that 
his  part  in  existence  is  to  be  a  worker  in  a 
work,  and  that  nothing  happening  to  himself 
matters,  so  long  as  that  work  proceeds  to  its 
inevitable  end.  He  knows  that  the  end  of 
thought  and  feeling  is  action  for  his  fellow- 
men,  and  that  this  action  must  be  either  dis- 
passionate and  without  thought  of  reward,  or 
full  of  a  spirit  of  grateful  offering. 

He  possesses  now  the  faculty  of  the  intu- 
ition, which  transcending  both  reason  and 
emotion  yet  can  justify  its  judgments  to 
either.  He  grows  past  "common  sense,''  the 
criterion  for  common  things,  into  an  uncom- 
mon sense;  for  life  is  full  now  of  uncommon 
things  of  whose  existence  others  are  not 
aware.  In  men  and  women  he  discerns  those 
invisible  factors  which  are  inevitable  in  human 
relations,  and  hence  his  judgment  of  them  is 
"not  of  this  world."  In  all  things  he  sees  and 
feels  one  Life.  Whatever  unites  attracts  him; 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT  75 


if  intellectual  he  will  love  to  synthesize  in 
science  or  philosophy,  if  emotional  he  will 
dedicate  himself  to  art  or  philanthropy. 

Now  slowly  for  him  the  Many  become  the 
One.  The  Unity  will  be  known  only  in  the 
vision  of  the  next  stage,  but  preparing  him 
for  it,  science  and  art,  religion  and  philos- 
ophy, will  deduce  for  him  eternal  fundamen- 
tal types  from  the  kaleidoscope  of  life.  Types 
of  forms,  types  of  thought,  types  of  emotions, 
types  of  temperament — these  he  sees  every- 
where round  him,  and  life  in  all  its  phases  be- 
comes transformed  because  it  reflects  as  in  a 
mirror  Archetypes  of  a  realm  beyond  time 
and  space  and  mutability. 

Everything  of  mortal  birth 

Is  but  a  type; 
What  was  of  feeble  worth 

Here  becomes  ripe. 
What  was  a  mystery 

Here  meets  the  eye; 
The  Ever-womanly 

Draws  us  on  high. 

"The  Ever-womanly^'  now  shows  him 
everywhere  one  Wisdom;  science  tells  him  of 
the  oneness  of  nature,  and  philosophy  that 
man  is  a  consciousness  creating  his  world;  art 


76  THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT 


reveals  in  all  things  youth  and  beauty,  and 
religion  whispers  to  his  heart  that  Lov6 
broods  over  all.  His  sympathies  go  to  all  as 
his  will  is  ever  at  their  service. 

Not  far  now  is  the  time  when  for  him  shall 
dawn  the  Vision  of  the  Spirit.  But  to  bring 
him  to  its  portal  a  dissatisfaction  once  more 
enters  his  soul.  No  longer  can  that  dissatis- 
faction be  personal;  the  sad  reaping  of  sorrow 
for  evil  done  is  over,  and  "only  the  sorrow  of 
others  casts  its  shadow  over  me."  Nor  is  it 
caused  by  any  sense  of  the  mutability  of 
things,  for,  absolutely  without  question,  he 
knows  his  immortality,  and  that  though  all 
things  change  there  is  behind  them  That 
which  changes  never.  Yet  while  he  climbs 
to  his  appointed  goal  dissatisfaction  must  al- 
ways be. 

It  comes  to  him  now  as  a  creator.  For  with 
intuition  to  guide  him  he  creates  in  that  field 
of  endeavor  in  which  he  has  trained  himself 
in  past  lives;  as  a  poet,  artist,  statesman, 
^  saint  or  scientist,  he  is  one  of  the  world's 
geniuses.  But  though  his  creations  are  a  mir- 
acle to  all,  yet  to  him  they  are  only  partly  true 
and  only  partly  beautiful,  for  he  sees  the  ideal 
which  he  would  fain  bring  down  to  men,  and 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT  77 


knows  his  failure  as  none  others  can  know. 
Life  is  teaching  him  "to  attain  by  shadowing 
forth  th'  unattainable/' 

As  thus  he  grows  life  after  life,  scientist 
and  poet,  artist  and  saint,  now  merge  into  a 
new  type  of  being  who  sees  with  "larger,  other 
eyes  than  ours.''  He  has  regained  his  integ- 
rity of  heart  and  his  innocency  of  hands  and 
is  become  "a  little  child;"  "by  pity  enlight- 
ened" he  is  now  Parsifal,  the  "Pure  Fool," 
who  enters  upon  his  heritage. 

The  Vision  of  the  Spirit 
Then  it  is  that  at  its  threshold  there  meets 
him  One  Who  has  watched  him  climbing  for 
many  a  life  and  all  unseen  has  encouraged 
him.  This  is  the  Master,  one  of  that  "good- 
liest fellowship  of  famous  knights  whereof  the 
world  holds  record."  In  Him  the  soul  sees  in 
realization  all  those  ideals  that  have  drawn 
him  onward  and  upward;  and  hand  in  hand 
with  this  "Father  in  God"  he  now  treads  "the 
Way"  while  the  Vision  of  the  Spirit  is  shown 
him  by  his  Master.  Who  shall  describe  that 
vision  but  those  that  have  it,  and  how  may 
one  less  than  a  Master  here  speak  with  au- 
thority? And  yet  since  Masters  of  the  Wis- 
dom have  moved  among  men,  since  Buddha, 


78  •    THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

Krishna  and  Christ  have  shown  us  in  Their 
lives  something  of  what  that  vision  is,  surely 
from  Their  lives  we  can  deduce  what  the 
vision  must  be. 

In  that  Vision  of  the  Spirit  the  Many  is  the 
One/  "Alone  within  this  universe  He  comes 
and  goes;  'tis  He  who  is  the  fire,  the  water  He 
pervadeth ;  Him  and  Him  only  knowing,  one 
crosseth  over  death;  no  other  path  at  all  is 
there  to  go/' 

Now  for  the  soul  who  has  come  to  the  end 
of  his  climbing  each  man  is  only  "the  spirit 
he  worked  in,  not  what  he  did  but  what  he 
became/'  There  is  no  high  nor  low  in  life, 
for  in  all  he  sees  a  ray  from  the  Divine  Flame ; 
as  through  the  highest  so  through  the  lowest 
too,  to  him  "God  stooping  shows  sufficient  of 
His  light  for  us  i'  th'  dark  to  rise  by."  Life  is 
henceforth  become  a  Sacrament  and  he  is  its 
Celebrant;  with  loving  thoughts  and  deeds  he 
celebrates  and  at-ones  man  with  God  and  God 
with  man.  He  discerns,  purifies  in  himself, 
and  offers  to  God  "infinite  passion  and  the 
pain  of  finite  hearts  that  yearn;"  from  God 
on  high  he  brings  to  men  what  alone  can  satis- 
fy that  yearning. 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT 


79 


He  has  renounced  "the  will  to  live'^  and 
thereby  has  made  its  purpose  his  own:  'Tore- 
going  self  the  universe  grows  I."  Yet  he 
knows  with  rapture  that  that  ''I''  is  but  a  tiny 
lens  in  a  great  Light.  Henceforth  he  lives 
only  that  a  Greater  than  he  may  live  through 
him,  love  through  him,  act  through  him;  and 
evermore  shall  his  heart  whisper,  in  heaven 
or  in  hell,  whithersoever  his  work  may  take 
him:  ''Him  know  I,  the  Mighty  Man,  resplen- 
dent like  the  Sun,  beyond  the  Darkness;  Him 
and  Him  only  knowing  one  crosseth  over 
death;  no  other  path  at  all  is  there  to  go/' 

jjc  jjc  5|c  jjc  5jc  5^  3|c 

Thus  do  we,  the  happy  few,  the  precursors 
of  a  new  age,  see  life  in  the  light  of  reincarna- 
tion. As  the  evolutionist  sees  all  nature 
linked  in  one  ladder  of  life,  and  sky  and  sea 
testify  to  him  of  evolution,  so  do  we  see  all 
men  linked  in  one  common  purpose,  and  their 
hopes  and  fears,  their  self-sacrifice  and  their 
selfishness,  testify  to  us  of  reincarnation.  Life 
and  its  experiences  have  ceased  to  be  for  us, 

an  arch  wherethro' 
Gleams  that  untravell'd  world,  whose  margin  fades 
For  ever  and  for  ever  when  I  move. 


80  THE  VISION  OF  THE  SPIRIT 


No  longer  can  the  world  be  for  us  as  the 
poet  sang: 

Act  first,  this  Earth,  a  stage  so  gloomed  with  woe, 
You  all  but  sicken  at  the  shifting  scenes. 

And  yet  be  patient.  Our  Playwright  may  show 
In  some  fifth  Act  what  this  wild  Drama  means. 

The  Fifth  Act  is  here  before  our  eyes.  It  is 
that  Vision  of  the  Spirit  that  is  the  heritage 
of  every  soul,  and  thither  all  men  are  slowly- 
treading,  for  "no  other  path  at  all  is  there  to 
go." 


THE  LAW  OF  RENUNCIATION 

The  joy  of  life!  Is  it  not  everywhere?  In 
plant  and  animal  and  man  do  we  not  see  an 
instinct  for  happiness  which  impels  all  crea- 
tion to  rise  from  good  to  better,  from  better 
to  best?  Since  God  said,  "Let  there  be  light!'' 
are  not  all  men  seeking  to  step  out  of  dark- 
ness into  light — ^blindly,  dimly  feeling  that 
happiness  must  be  their  goal?  Yet  how  few 
find  happiness  in  life !   It  is  easy  to  sing, 

God's  in  his  heaven, 

All's  right  with  the  world! 

But  to  sing  so  long  one  must  be  blind  to 
facts.  Life  is  a  tragedy  to  many,  and  far 
truer  is  it  described  by  Tennyson: 

Act  first,  this  Earth,  a  stage  so  gloom'd  with  woe 
You  all  but  sicken  at  the  shifting  scenes. 

And  yet  be  patient.   Our  Playwright  may  show 
In  some  fifth  Act  what  this  wild  Drama  means. 

Nevertheless  all  feel  that  happiness  must 
be  the  goal  of  life,  and  humanity  never  errs 


82  THE  LAW  OF  RENUNCIATION 


in  its  deepest  feelings.  But  then  why  should 
not  the  attainment  of  happiness  be  easier 
than  it  is? 

Man  an  Evolving  Soul 
There  is  a  philosophy  of  life  which  holds 
that  man  is  an  immortal  soul,  living  not  one 
life  on  earth  but  many,  growing  by  the  expe- 
riences he  gains  in  them  manifold  capacities 
and  virtues.  This  philosophy  further  postu- 
lates that  all  men  are  the  children  of  One 
Father,  who  has  created  a  universe,  in  order 
that  working  therein  His  children  may  know 
something  of  Him,  and  come  to  Him  in  joy. 
According  to  this  theory,  the  purpose  of  life  is 
not  to  achieve  a  stable  condition  of  happiness 
for  any  individual,  but  rather  to  train  him  to 
work  in  a  Plan  of  an  Ideal  Future,  and  find  in 
that  work  an  ever-changing  and  ever-growing 
contentment. 

From  the  standpoint  of  the  Theosophist  all 
men  are  indeed  working  for  a  foreordained 
ideal  future;  but  they  work  at  different  stages 
according  to  their  differing  capacities.  A 
recognition  of  these  stages  and  the  laws  of  life 
appropriate  to  each  makes  life  less  the  riddle 
that  it  is.  There  are  three  broad  stages  on 
the  Path  of  Bliss  that  leads  to  the  Highest 


THE  LAW  OF  RENUNCIATION 


83 


Good,  and  they  are  happiness,  renunciation, 
and  transfiguration. 

The  Stage  of  Happiness 
God  calls  upon  His  children  at  this  stage  to 
co-operate  with  Him  by  offering  them  happi- 
ness as  the  aim  of  life.  He  has  implanted  in 
them  a  craving  for  happiness,  and  provides 
work  for  them  that  shall  make  then!  happy. 
Love  of  wife  and  child  and  friend,  fame  and 
the  gratitude  of  men,  success  and  ease — these 
are  His  rewards  for  those  that  serve  Him. 
Many  are  the  pleasant  paths  in  life  for  the 
young  souls  at  this  stage,  reaping  happiness 
as  they  prove  those  pleasures 

That  hills  and  valleys,  dale  and  field, 
And  all  the  craggy  mountains  yield. 

Useful  as  men  are  in  the  Great  Work  at  this 
stage,  yet  so  long  as  a  man  deliberately  seeks 
happiness,  his  capabilities  as  a  worker  are 
soon  exhausted.  For  soon  he  "settles  down 
in  life;''  the  precious  gift  of  wonder  slowly 
fades  away,  his  happiness  ceases  to  be  dyna- 
mic. Self-centered  he  calls  on  the  universe  to 
give.  But  the  Path  to  Bliss  is  by  work,  and 
if  he  is  to  go  ever  on  he  must  fit  himself  for  a 
larger  work  than  has  so  far  fallen  to  his  share. 


84  THE  LAW  OF  RENUNCIATION 

He  must  enter  on  the  next  stage,  but  for  that 
he  must  change  utterly.  Hitherto  he  has 
measured  men  and  things  by  the  standard  of 
his  little  self;  henceforth  the  Great  Self  must 
be  his  measure.  He  must  break  the  sway  of 
himself  and  realize  that  evermore  what  is  im- 
portant in  life  is  not  he,  not  his  happiness, 
but  a  Work.  Before  this  realization  can  be- 
gin there  must  be  a  conversion. 

Conversion 
In  many  ways  are  men  converted  from  the 
interests  of  the  little  self  to  the  work  of  the 
Great  Self.  Some,  loving  Truth  in  religious 
garb,  open  their  hearts  to  a  Personality  that 
dazzles  their  imagination.  Thenceforth  they 
must  serve  Him  and  be  like  Him  and  gone  for 
ever  is  the  standpoint  of  the  little  self.  Some 
study  science  and  philosophy  and  discover  a 
magnificent  plan  of  evolution,  with  the  in- 
evitable result  that  they  know  that  the  in- 
dividual is  but  a  unit  of  the  great  Whole  and 
not  the  center  of  the  cosmos;  and  if  they  set 
rightly  to  study  they  see,  too,  that  there  is  a 
Will  at  work,  and  that  cost  what  it  may  they 
must  co-operate  with  that  Will.  A  few  there 
are  to  whom  comes  some  mysterious  expe- 
rience from  the  hidden  side  of  things,  and  life 


THE  LAW  OF  RENUNCIATION  85 


speaks  to  them  a  transforming  message.  Out 
of  the  invisible  comes  a  ^'Saul,  Saul,  why 
persecutest  thou  Me?''  and  a  persecutor  of 
Christians  is  changed  into  an  apostle  of 
Christ.  Manifold  are  the  ways  of  conver- 
sion, the  same  in  all  lands  and  in  all  faiths. 
One  factor  is  common,  the  old  personality  is 
disintegrated,  and  a  new  one  is  reintegrated 
in  the  service  of  a  Work. 

When  through  conversion  the  new  per- 
sonality is  ready  for  a  larger  work  the  tools 
he  uses  must  be  made  pure.  They  are  his 
thoughts  and  feelings,  and  slowly  a  process  of 
purification  is  begun.  Disappointment  and 
pain  and  grief  are  his  lot — the  sad  harvest  of 
a  sowing  of  selfishness  in  the  unseen  past  of 
many  lives,  for  we  reap  as  we  have  sown. 
When  the  worker  is  ready,  swift  is  Nature's 
response  to  free  him  from  the  burden  of  his 
past,  in  order  that  he  may  be  fit  to  achieve 
the  great  work  prepared  for  him. 

The  Meaning  of  Pain 
With  some,  sorrow  hardens  the  character, 
but  with  those  who  are  ready  to  enter  on  the 
second  stage  it  ever  purifies.  Does  not  the  very 
texture  of  the  flesh  of  a  sufferer  who  has  in 
patience  and  resignation  borne  his  pain  seem 


86  THE  LAW  OF  RENUNCIATION 

luminous  and  pure,  as  though  through  every 
cell  there  gleamed  the  light  of  a  hidden  fire? 
How  much  more  is  it  with  mental  suffering? 
Are  we  not  irresistibly  drawn  to  reverence 
one  who  has  suffered  much  and  nobly,  and 
sometimes  to  love,  too? 

Sorrow  was  there  made  fair, 
Passion  wise;  tears  a  delightful  thing; 
Silence  beyond  all  speech  a  wisdom  rare. 

She  made  her  sighs  to  sing, 
And  all  things  with  so  sweet  a  sadness  move 
As  made  my  heart  at  once  both  grieve  and  love. 

The  Stage  of  Renunciation 
Life  seems  full  of  evil  days  to  those  that 
come  to  the  end  of  the  first  stage,  but  its  les- 
son is  clear.  That  lesson  is,  "Thou  must  go 
without,  go  without!  That  is  the  everlasting 
song,  which  every  hour,  all  our  life  through, 
hoarsely  sings  to  us.'^  Truly  does  Carlyle  voice 
the  wisdom  of  the  ages  when  he  says,  "The 
Fraction  of  Life  can  be  increased  in  value  not 
so  much  by  increasing  your  numerators  as  by 
lessening  your  denominator.  Nay,  unless  my 
algebra  deceive  me,  unity  itself  divided  by 
zero  will  give  infinity.  Make  thy  claim  of 
wages  a  zero  then;  thou  hast  the  world  under 
thy  feet.^' 


THE  LAW  OF  RENUNCIATION  87 


The  Law  of  Renunciation 
All  great  workers  know  that  the  Law  of 
Renunciation  is  true  and  that  '^it  is  only  with 
Renunciation  that  Life,properly  speaking,can 
be  said  to  begin/'  There  are  no  great  souls 
that  are  completely  happy,  can  never  be! 
Once  more  let  the  great  apostle  of  work  speak 
to  us:  ^The  happy  man  was  never  yet 
created;  the  virtuous  man,  tho'  clothed  in 
rags  and  sinking  under  pain,  is  the  jewel  of 
the  Earth,  however  I  may  doubt  it,  or  deny  it 
in  bitterness  of  heart.  0  never  let  me  forget 
it!  Teach  me,  tell  me,  when  the  Fiend  of 
Suffering  and  the  base  Spirit  of  the  World  are 
ready  to  prevail  against  me,  and  drive  me 
from  this  last  stronghold/' 

Take  whom  you  will  who  has  done  a  great 
work,  and  he  knows  that  renunciation  is  the 
law.  In  bitterness  of  heart  Ruskin  cries  out: 
"IVe  had  my  heart  broken  ages  ago,  when  I 
was  a  boy,  then  mended,  cracked,  beaten  in, 
kicked  about  old  corridors,  and  finally,  I 
think,  flattened  fairly  out."  But  he  per- 
severed in  his  work  all  the  same.  There  is  no 
greater  name  in  the  world  of  art  than  Michael 
Angelo,  ^^this  masterful  and  stern,  life- 
wearied  and  labor-hardened  man,''  whose  his- 


88 


THE  LAW  OF  RENUNCIATION 


tory  ''is  one  of  indomitable  will  and  almost 
superhuman  energy,  yet  of  will  that  had 
hardly  ever  had  its  way,  and  of  energy  con- 
tinually at  war  with  circumstance/'  It  is  the 
same  with  all  who  have  been  great. 

The  Meaning  of  Life 
But  through  renunciation  the  soul  on  the 
threshold  of  greatness  discovers  life's  mean- 
ing. If  religious,  he  will  state  it,  ''Thy  will  be 
done;"  if  scientific  or  artistic  he  will  say, 
"Not  I,  but  a  Work.''  He  is  now  as  Faust  who 
sought  happiness  in  knowledge,  and  failed; 
sought  it  in  the  love  of  Marguerite  and  reaped 
a  tragedy ;  and  only  as  he  planned  to  reclaim 
waste  lands  for  men,  and  lost  himself  in  the 
dream  of  that  work,  found  that  long-sought- 
for  happy  moment  when  he  could  say,  "Ah, 
tarry  a  while,  thou  art  so  fair!" 

So,  renouncing,  live  the  souls  at  the  second 
stage,  lovers  of  a  Work.  Sad  at  heart  they 
are ;  but  if  they  are  loyal  to  their  work,  then 
comes  to  them  in  fleeting  moments  more  than 
happiness,  the  joy  of  creation.  Such  won- 
ders they  now  body  forth  that  to  themselves 
their  masterpieces  are  enigmas.  In  fitful 
gleams  they  see  a  Light,  and  know  that  now 


THE  LAW  OF  RENUNCIATION  89 


and  then  it  shines  through  them  to  the  world. 
Perfect  masters  of  technique  they  are  now, 
in  religion,  in  art,  in  science,  in  every  depart- 
ment of  life.  But,  alas!  just  as  they  have  dis- 
covered what  it  is  to  live,  what  it  is  to  create, 
they  are  old,  and  life  comes  to  a  close,  before 
it  seems  hardly  begun.  Shall  the  path  of  re- 
nunciation bring  nothing  but  despair? 

Despair  was  never  yet  so  deep, 

In  sinking  as  in  seeming; 
Despair  is  hope  just  dropp'd  asleep 

For  better  chance  of  dreaming. 

The  Stage  of  Transfiguration 

"Hope  just  dropp'd  asleep  for  better  chance 
of  dreaming'' — that,  truly,  is  death.  The 
great  worker  leaves  life  but  to  return  again, 
with  every  dream  old  and  new  nearer  realiza- 
tion. He  returns  with  the  inborn  mastery  of 
technique  of  the  genius  to  achieve  where  he 
only  dreamed.  The  joy  of  creation  is  now  his 
sure  and  priceless  possession,  that  wondrous 
joy  which  only  those  know  who  can  offer  all 
gifts  of  heart  and  mind  and  stand  apart  from 
them  while  a  Greater  than  they  creates 
through  them.  "Seeking  nothing,  he  gains 
all;  foregoing  self,  the  universe  grows  I." 


90  THE  LAW  OF  RENUNCIATION 


Now  has  he  found  that  life  which  he  lost  in 
the  stage  of  Renunciation;  henceforth,  in  all 
places  and  at  all  times,  is  he  become  "a 
pillar  in  the  temple  of  my  God,  and  he  shall 
no  more  go  out/' 

The  Path  of  Bliss 
So  life  gives  of  its  best  to  all — ^happiness  to 
some,  renunciation  to  others,  and,  to  a  few, 
transfiguration.  What  if  now  most  of  us  who 
love  Truth  must  "do  without?"  Let  us  but 
dedicate  heart  and  mind  to  a  Work,  and  we 
shall  find  that  renunciation  leads  to  trans- 
figuration. There  is  but  one  road  to  God,  for 
all  to  tread.  It  is  the  Path  of  Bliss.  It  has 
its  steps — ^happiness,  renunciation,  and  trans- 
figuration. Whoso  will  offer  up  all  that  he  is 
to  a  Work,  though  he  "lose  his  life"  thereby, 
yet  shall  he  find  it  soon,  and  "come  again 
rejoicing,  bringing  his  sheaves  with  him." 


THE  HIDDEN  WORK  OF  NATURE^ 


Never,  in  the  history  of  mankind,  has  there 
been  a  time  as  to-day  when  it  could  be  so 
truly  said  that. 

The  old  order  changeth,  yielding  place  to  new, 

And  God  fulfils  Himself  in  many  ways, 

Lest  one  good  custom  should  corrupt  the  world. 

It  is  true  that  "the  man  in  the  street^' 
knows  of  no  such  great  change;  life  for  him 
moves  as  of  old  in  its  fixed  grooves,  and  if  the 
world's  progress  has  multiplied  for  him  life's 
conveniences,  it  has  also  multiplied  for  him 
life's  needs.  Change  to  him  is  largely  a  mat- 
ter of  a  surplus  of  comforts  over  pains,  and 
in  this  regard  the  old  order  has  changed  but 
little  for  him.  But  the  man  in  the  library, 
the  laboratory,  the  studio,  the  pulpit,  is 
aware  of  this  great  change,  and  he  knows  that 
it  began  with  the  work  of  Darwin  and  his 
school. 

lA  lecture  delivered  at  the  Small  Queen's  Hall,  London, 
October  26th,  1913. 


92  THE  HIDDEN  WORK  OF  NATURE 

The  importance  of  the  work  of  modern 
scientists  lies  in  the  fact  that  they  have  mar- 
shalled for  us  the  events  of  nature  into  an 
orderly  pageant  of  evolution.  What  mere  re- 
ligion has  not  been  able  to  do,  science  has 
achieved,  which  is  to  show  Life  as  one. 
Theological  trinities  of  Creator,  Creation,  and 
Creature,  or  dualities  of  God  and  Man,  have 
not  unified  life  for  us  in  the  way  science  has 
done;  Mysticism  alone,  with  its  truth  of 
Immanence,  has  revealed  to  men  something 
of  that  unified  existence  of  all  that  is,  that  is 
the  logical  deduction  from  modern  evolution- 
ary theories. 

When  we  contemplate  the  pageant  of  na- 
ture, we  see  her  at  a  work  of  building  and  un- 
building. From  mineral  to  bacterium  and 
plant,  from  microbe  to  animal  and  man,  na- 
ture is  busy  at  a  visible  work,  step  by  step 
evolving  higher  and  more  complex  struc- 
tures. Though  she  may  seem  at  first  sight  to 
work  blindly  and  mechanically,  she  has  in  re- 
ality a  coherent  plan  of  action;  this  is  to 
evolve  structures  stage  by  stage,  so  that  the 
amount  of  time  needed  by  a  given  creature 
for  its  self -protection  and  sustenance  may  be 
less  and  less  with  each  successive  generation. 


THE  HIDDEN  WORK  OF  NATURE  93 

The  higher  a  structure  is  in  its  organization 
and  adaptability,  the  more  time,  and  hence 
more  energy,  there  is  free  for  other  purposes 
of  life  than  sustenance  and  procreation. 

Two  elements  in  life  arise  from  the  perfec- 
tion of  the  structural  mechanism  that  the 
higher  orders  of  creatures  reveal.  First,  they 
have  time  for  play,  for  it  is  in  play  that  such 
energy  manifests  as  is  not  required  for  gain- 
ing food  and  shelter.  The  second  element 
manifests  itself  only  when  human  beings  ap- 
pear in  evolution,  and  men  begin  to  show  a 
desire  for  adaptability.  Adaptability  to  en- 
vironment exists  in  the  plant  and  in  the  an- 
imal, but  it  is  in  them  purely  instinctive  or 
mechanical;  with  man  on  the  other  hand 
there  is  an  attempt  at  conscious  adaptability. 

When  this  desire  for  adaptability  increases, 
nature  reveals  a  new  principle  of  evolution. 
To  the  principle  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest 
by  a  struggle  for  existence,  she  adds  the  new 
one  of  evolution  by  inter-dependence.  Hence 
we  find  human  units  aggregating  themselves 
into  groups,  and  primitive  men  organizing 
themselves  into  families  and  tribes. 

Once  more  this  means  a  saving  of  labor  and 


94  THE  HIDDEN  WORK  OF  NATURE 


time  in  the  material  struggle  for  existence; 
some  of  both  is  now  at  nature's  disposal  to 
train  men  to  discover  new  ways  of  life  and 
action.  To  the  play  of  the  individual  there  is 
added  a  communal  life  that  makes  civiliza- 
tion possible.  For  civilization  means  that 
some  individuals  in  a  community  are  dis- 
satisfied with  what  contents  all  the  others, 
and  that  therefore  they  are  burning  with  a 
zeal  for  reform;  and  the  spirit  of  reform 
sooner  or  later  is  inevitable  in  evolution.  The 
survival  of  the  fittest  can  only  come  about  by 
that  mysterious  arrival  of  the  fittest  that  no 
scientist  can  explain;  nature  now  ushers  in 
^^the  fittest''  in  the  few  that  are  planning  for 
reform.  For  reform  means  that  slowly  or- 
ganisms will  adapt  themselves  more  and  more 
to  the  possibilities  of  environment,  for  to 
each  successive  change  to  greater  adaptability 
nature  has  something  new  to  give. 

Thus  individual  men  and  women  become 
nature's  tools;  she  works  with  their  hearts 
and  minds  and  hands  to  create  social  and 
political  activities.  Religion  and  science  and 
art  appear  among  men;  the  struggle  for  ex- 
istence is  no  longer  nature's  sole  means  for 
bringing  to  realization  her  aim;  inter-depen- 


THE  HIDDEN  WORK  OF  NATURE  95 

dence  of  units,  and  therewith  reform,  are  the 
means  she  uses  now. 

Then  it  is  that  nature  proclaims  to  men 
that  message  she  has  kept  for  them  through 
the  ages.  It  is  the  joy  of  social  service. 
Strange  and  unreal,  as  yet,  to  most  men  is  the 
thought  of  such  a  joy;  but  evolution  has  but 
lately  entered  on  this  phase  of  her  work,  and 
ages  must  yet  elapse  before  social  service  be- 
comes as  instinctive  in  men  as  are  now  self- 
assertion  and  selfishness.  But  that  day  must 
inevitably  be;  the  handful  of  reformers  to- 
day are  as  the  "missing  links^'  of  a  chain  that 
stretches  forward  from  man  to  superman.  As 
from  the  isolation  and  selfishness  of  the  brute, 
nature  has  evolved  the  inter-dependence  of 
men,  so  too  is  self-sacrifice  the  next  logical 
step  in  her  evolutionary  self-revelation. 

A  more  inspiring  picture  there  could  hardly 
be  than  this  of  nature  at  work  at  her  building 
and  unbuilding.  Yet  there  are  not  a  few  of 
dark  shadows  in  the  picture.  So  long  as  the 
individual  lives  only  the  few  brief  years  of 
his  life,  so  long  as  nothing  of  him  remains  as 
an  individual  after  his  death,  there  is  a  ruth- 
lessness  about  nature  that  is  appalling.  Where 
is  to-day  "the  glory  that  was  Greece  and  the 


96 


THE  HIDDEN  WORK  OF  NATURE 


grandeur  that  was  Rome?"  Some  day  there 
must  be  an  end  to  nature's  work,  in  this 
planet  at  least  where  we  live.  There  are  dead 
suns  in  space  and  some  day  our  sun  will  die 
out  and  every  satellite  of  his  will  be  a  frozen 
world.  Careful  of  the  type,  nature  truly 
builds  form  after  form,  and  will  build  for 
many  an  age  yet  to  come.  There  is  indeed  a 
far-off  event  "to  which  the  whole  creation 
moves,''  but  it  is  to  that  state  when  living 
organisms  shall  lack  what  they  need  for  their 
life. 

So  long  as  we  contemplate  nature's  visible 
work  only,  not  the  greatest  altruist  but  must 
now  and  then  feel  the  shadow  of  a  great 
despair.  That  which  alone  makes  life  and 
self-sacrifice  real  and  inspiring  to  great  souls, 
the  thought  and  the  feeling  that  their  work 
will  endure  for  ever,  is  lacking  when  we  con- 
sider nature's  work  in  the  light  of  modern 
science  alone.  Yet  many  an  altruist  would  be 
content  to  die,  and  be  nothing  thereafter,  if  he 
could  but  feel  that  nature  had  some  pity  for 
his  fate.  Well  the  poet  voices  this  feeling 
arising  from  this  conception  of  nature,  or  of  a 
Deity  who  is  as  passionless  as  nature: 


THE  HIDDEN  WORK  OF  NATURE  97 

Life  is  pleasant,  and  friends  may  be  nigh, 

Fain  would  I  speak  one  word  and  be  spared; 

Yet  I  could  be  silent  and  cheerfully  die, 
If  I  were  only  sure  God  cared; 

If  I  had  faith  and  were  only  certain 

That  light  is  behind  that  terrible  curtain. 

It  is  here  that  Theosophy  steps  in  to  con- 
tinue the  work  of  science  and  explain  the  true 
significance  of  nature's  self-revelations.  As 
modern  science  points  to  nature's  visible 
work,  so  Theosophy  points  to  a  Hidden  Work 
of  Nature.  There  is  a  Hidden  Light  that  re- 
veals to  men  that  nature  is  but  one  expression 
of  a  Consciousness  at  work;  that  this  Con- 
sciousness is  at  work  with  a  Plan  of  evolu- 
tion; and  that  this  Consciousness  carries  out 
its  plan  through  us  and  through  us  alone.  The 
moment  we  realize  the  significance  of  this 
message  of  the  Hidden  Light  that  men  are 
immortal  souls  and  not  perishable  bodies,  we 
begin  to  see  that  while  careful  of  the  type,  na- 
ture is  not  less  careful  of  the  single  life  too. 
For  then  we  see  that  nature's  latest  phase,  a 
fullness  of  life  through  social  service,  neces- 
sarily involves  the  recognition  of  men  as 
souls;  for  it  would  be  useless  for  nature  to 
slowly  fashion  a  reformer  unless  she  could 
utilize  his  ability  and  experience  for  greater 


98  THE  HIDDEN  WORK  OF  NATURE 

reforms  in  the  future.  That  his  specialized 
abilities  shall  not  be  dissipated  would  surely 
then  be  logical  in  a  nature  for  which  we 
postulate  an  aim  that  persists  from  age  to 
age. 

It  does  not  require  much  profound  thought 
or  speculation  to  deduce  from  this  view  of 
nature's  work  that  men  live  for  ever  as  souls, 
and  that  through  reincarnation  they  become 
fitter  tools  in  nature's  hands  to  achieve  her 
purpose  of  evolution.  Let  but  reincarnation 
be  considered  a  part  of  nature's  plan,  and  at 
once  the  tragedy  of  nature  transforms  itself 
into  an  inspiring  and  stately  pageant.  For 
then  the  future  is  ourselves;  it  is  we  that 
shall  make  the  glorious  Utopias  of  dreams ;  we 
that  painfully  toil  to-day  to  fashion  bricks 
for  nature's  beautiful  edifice  in  far-off  days, 
we,  and  not  others,  shall  see  that  edifice  in  its 
splendor,  and  be  its  very  possessors.  Though 
the  spirit  of  action  of  the  best  of  us  is  ever  a 
sic  vos  sed  non  vobis,  yet  in  reality,  like  bread 
cast  upon  the  waters,  our  work  shall  greet  us 
ages  hence,  and  we  shall  then  be  glad  that  we 
have  toiled  so  well  now. 

So  comes  to  us  the  message  of  the  Hidden 
Light  that  nature  is  consciously  going  from 


THE  HIDDEN  WORK  OF  NATURE  99 

good  to  better,  from  better  to  best,  and  that 
she  works  out  her  splendid  purpose  through 
us,  who  may  become  her  ministers  or  must  be 
her  slaves. 

The  spirit  of  reform  then  being  a  part  of 
the  evolutionary  process,  the  next  point  to 
note  is  that  in  all  effective  reform  there  are 
two  elements:  first,  the  reform  is  brought, 
about  by  individuals  working  as  a  group,  and 
second,  the  group  has  a  leader.  It  is  fairly 
easy  to  understand  the  grouping  of  individ- 
uals co-operating  for  a  common  aim  as  a  part 
of  nature's  evolutionary  plan;  their  united 
action  but  expresses  the  social  instinct.  But 
it  is  perhaps  less  easy  to  see  that  nature 
selects  the  leader  and  sends  him  to  a  particu- 
lar group  to  crystallize  dreams  and  plans  into 
organization  and  action.  Yet  this  is  the  mes- 
sage of  the  Hidden  Light — that  a  leader  does 
not  appear  by  a  mere  concatenation  of 
chance  circumstances,  but  only  because  he  is 
selected  for  a  particular  work  and  is  sent  to 
do  it.  For  a  leader  does  not  come  in  evolu- 
tion as  a  ^^sport,''  a  passing  variant  produced 
nobody  knows  how ;  he  is  fashioned  by  a  slow 
laborious  process  lasting  thousands  of  years. 
Life  after  life,  in  a  process  of  rebirth,  the 


100         THE  HIDDEN  WORK  OF  NATURE 

would-be  leader  must  earn  his  future  posi- 
tion by  dedication  to  works  of  reform;  by  lit- 
tle actions  for  reform  as  a  savage,  by  larger 
actions  as  a  civilized  man,  he  trains  himself 
for  the  role  that  nature  has  written  for  him. 

If  we  look  at  reformers  in  the  light  of  rein- 
carnation, we  shall  see  that  their  present  abil- 
ity to  lead  is  simply  the  result  of  work  done 
in  past  lives.  Since  biologists  are  agreed  that 
acquired  characteristics  are  not  transmissible, 
we  must  look  for  that  rare  inborn  capacity  to 
lead,  not  in  the  heredity  of  the  organism,  but 
in  a  spiritual  heredity  that  is  in  the  life  and 
consciousness  of  the  individual.  This  is  ex- 
actly what  reincarnation  says;  the  individual 
acquired  his  ability  to  lead  today  by  en- 
deavors to  lead  in  many  a  past  life,  and  by 
succeeding  so  to  do. 

Furthermore  the  Hidden  Light  reveals  to 
us  that  each  present  movement  for  reform 
was  rehearsed  in  many  a  primitive  setting 
long  ago,  with  the  present  leaders  and  their 
coadjutors  as  actors.  We  need  but  look  at  the 
reform  movements  for  the  amelioration  of 
the  lot  of  the  working  classes  in  Europe  to  see 
how  the  leaders  to-day  in  the  various  coun- 
tries were  tribunes  of  the  plebs  in  Rome  or 


THE  HIDDEN  WORK  OF  NATURE  101 

demogogues  in  Athens  or  leaders  of  the  masses 
in  Carthage.  Nay,  furthermore,  it  is  not 
difficult  to  note  how  some  of  the  politicians 
and  statesmen  of  Greece  and  Rome  and  else- 
where, that  worked  to  abolish  abuses  and  to 
free  the  oppressed,  have  changed  sex  in  their 
present  incarnations,  and  are  with  us  today  as 
leaders  of  the  various  suffragists  and  feminist 
movements  of  the  world.  Where  else,  but  in 
past  lives,  did  these  women  learn  the  tactical 
strategy  and  mastery  of  leadership  that  they 
evince  in  their  campaigns  for  reform?  Why 
should  certain  men  and  women,  and  not  all, 
labor  and  toil  for  their  fellow-men,  renounc- 
ing all  and  coveting  martyrdom,  unless  those 
same  men  and  women  had  learned  by  past  ex- 
periences the  glory  of  action  for  reform? 
For  the  born  leaders  in  every  reform  are  gen- 
iuses in  their  way;  they  go  unerringly  to  an 
aim  with  the  conviction  of  success;  where  did 
they  develop  this  faith  in  themselves?  They 
are  in  reality  the  "missing  links''  from  men 
to-day  to  the  supermen  of  the  future,  and  it 
is  nature  herself  with  her  Hidden  Work  that 
has  so  fashioned  them  life  after  life. 

So  nature  plans  and  achieves,  and  the 
stately  pageant  moves  on.   But  her  purpose 


102         THE  HIDDEN  WORK  OF  NATURE 

is  not  achieved  slowly  and  leisurely,  adding 
change  to  change;  she  does  not  bring  about  a 
new  order  of  things  by  an  accumulation  of 
small  changes.  Nature  goes  by  leaps,  per 
saltum;  and  as  in  the  biological  world  crises 
appear  and  nature  makes  a  leap  and  ushers  in 
new  species,  so  too  is  it  in  the  world  of  human 
affairs.  Though  there  is  a  slow  steady  upward 
movement  for  progress  through  reform,  yet 
now  and  then  there  is  a  crisis  in  the  affairs  of 
men ;  then  things  happen,  and  after  the  crisis 
is  over  there  is,  as  it  were,  a  new  species  in 
human  activity.  Reform  takes  a  new  trend, 
and  a  whole  host  of  new  reforms  are  ushered 
in  to  make  life  fuller  and  nobler. 

One  such  crisis  in  human  affairs  came  in 
Palestine,  with  the  coming  of  Christ.  For 
though  men  knew  not  that  it  was  a  crisis, 
though  Greece  and  Rome  dreamed  and 
planned  of  philosophy  and  dominion  without 
end,  a  dawn  had  begun  of  a  new  era,  and  an 
age  was  ushered  in,  in  the  heyday  of  which 
Greece  and  Rome  should  be  a  mere  name. 
Christ  ministered  in  Palestine,  spoke  to  peas- 
ant and  priest,  and  gave  His  sermons  ^'on  the 
Mount;"  and  men  knew  not  then  that  with 
His  message  He  gave  birth  to  new  species  of 


THE  HIDDEN  WORK  OF  NATURE  103 

idealism  in  action.  But  after  two  thousand 
years  have  elapsed,  we  of  another  generation 
can  see  that  when  Christ  lived  in  Palestine, 
and  the  Roman  Empire  was  but  just  then  be- 
ginning its  day  of  glory,  then  indeed  was  the 
beginning  of  the  end  of  a  world  of  thought 
and  action — of  that  "glory  that  was  Greece 
and  the  grandeur  that  was  Rome'^ — and  that 
Christ  gave  His  message  not  so  much  to  the 
men  of  His  day  as  to  those  that  were  to  come. 

So  too  was  it  in  India,  six  centuries  before 
Christ;  another  "dreamer^'  appeared,  Sid- 
dhartha,  Prince  of  the  Sakya  Clan;  men  lis- 
tened to  Him  and  loved  Him  and  followed 
Him,  but  they  little  dreamed  that  He  was  in 
reality  building  an  Empire  of  Righteousness, 
which  even  after  twenty-five  centuries  should 
embrace  within  it  five  hundred  millions  of 
souls.  To  the  critics  of  His  time.  He  was  but 
another  "Teacher,^'  one  of  hundreds  then  liv- 
ing in  India  pointing  out  "the  Way;''  it  is 
only  after  the  lapse  of  centuries  that  later 
generations  know  that  He  was  a  Teacher  of 
Teachers,  a  Flower  on  our  human  tree  the  like 
of  which  had  never  been. 

Every  so  often  then,  there  is  a  climax  in 
human  affairs,  and  always  such  a  climax  is 


104         THE  HIDDEN  WORK  OF  NATURE 

preceded  by  an  age  when  men  "dream 
dreams."  In  Palestine  prophet  after  prophet 
dreamed  of  "the  great  and  dreadful  day  of  the 
Lord"  before  Christ  came,  and  proclaimed  its 
coming  and  worked  for  it;  in  India  many  a 
sage  and  philosopher  with  his  solutions  pre- 
pared the  way  for  the  message  of  the  Buddha. 
And  in  every  such  climax,  small  or  great, 
the  resolution  comes  through  the  inter- 
mediary of  a  Personality.  For  nature  weaves 
the  tangled  knot  of  human  fate,  "nowise 
moved  except  unto  working  out  of  doom;" 
but  she  plans  too  the  Solver  of  the  knot,  and 
for  every  crisis  which  is  of  her  planning,  she 
has  prepared  the  Man  who  holds  the  solution 
in  his  heart  and  brain. 

In  this  our  twentieth  century,  men  dream 
dreams  as  never  heretofore.  East  and  west, 
north  and  south,  the  machinery  of  human  life 
grates  on  the  ear,  and  there  is  not  a  single 
man  or  woman  of  true  imagination  who  can 
say,  "God's  in  his  heaven,  alFs  right  with  the 
world!" 

De  profundis  clamavi  better  describes  the 
wail  of  every  nation.  Millions  are  spent  on 
armies  and  navies,  while  the  poor  are  clamor- 


THE  HIDDEN  WORK  OF  NATURE  105 

ing  for  bread;  and  statesmen  themselves  are 
wringing  their  hands  that  they  cannot  give  a 
nation^s  wealth  back  to  the  nation  in  hospitals 
and  schools  and  fair  gardens  and  clean  habita- 
tions. For  there  are  ^Vars  and  rumors  of 
wars."  The  spirit  of  charity  grows  year  by 
year,  but  it  seems  as  though  charity  but  added 
patches  to  a  rotting  garment,  and  the  more 
the  patches  that  are  put  on  the  more  the  rents 
that  appear.  Strife  between  capital  and  la- 
bor, race  hatred  between  white  and  brown  and 
yellow  and  black,  a  deadlock  between  science 
and  religion,  and  more  than  all  else  the  in- 
creasing luxury  of  the  few  and  the  increasing 
misery  of  the  many,  these  are  but  a  few  of  the 
problems  facing  philanthropists  to-day.  But 
every  reformer  realizes,  in  whatever  depart- 
ment he  works,  that  for  lasting  reform  a  com- 
plete reconstruction  is  needed  of  the  whole 
social  structure,  if  poverty  and  disease  and 
ignorance  and  misery  shall  be  as  a  nightmare 
that  has  been  but  shall  never  be  again.  All 
are  eager  for  reform ;  thousands  are  willing  to 
co-operate.  But  none  knows  where  to  begin, 
in  the  true  reconstruction.  Each  is  indeed 
terrified  lest  in  trying  to  pull  one  brick  out  of 
the  present  social  edifice,  to  replace  it  by  a 


106         THE  HIDDEN  WORK  OF  NATURE 

better,  he  may  not  pull  the  whole  structure 
down,  and  so  cause  misery  instead  of  joy. 

This  is  the  crisis  present  before  our  eyes, 
confronting  not  one  nation  but  all.  ^^Out  of 
the  depths  have  I  cried  unto  Thee,  0  Lord," 
is  true  to-day  as  never  before. 

Everywhere,  in  every  department  where 
men  work  for  reform,  men  are  looking  for  a 
Leader.  Where  is  He  that  nature  has  selected, 
in  Whose  mind  is  the  Plan,  in  Whose  heart  is 
the  Spirit,  and  in  Whose  hand  is  the  Power? 
Let  Him  but  appear,  let  Him  but  say,  "This  is 
how  you  shall  work,'^  and  thousands  will  flock 
to  Him  in  joy.  And  it  is  the  message  of  the 
Hidden  Light  that  He  is  ready,  for  from  the 
hearts  of  men  a  cry  has  gone  forth,  and  from 
the  bosom  of  God  a  Son  shall  come.  The 
world  is  in  the  birth-throes  once  again  for  the 
coming  of  a  Son  of  Man,  and  the  young  men 
that  see  visions  to-day  shall  in  their  prime 
find  Him  in  their  midst,  the  Wonderful,  the 
Counsellor,  the  Prince  of  Peace. 

Never  an  age,  when  God  has  need  of  him, 

Shall  want  its  man,  predestined  by  that  need. 
To  pour  his  life  in  fiery  word  and  need. 

The  great  Archangel  of  the  Elohim. 


THE  HIDDEN  WORK  OF  NATURE  107 

When  He  that  the  world  waits  for,  and 
Whom  nature  has  planned  to  come  *^unto  this 
hour/'  shall  appear,  what  will  be  His  work? 
What  but  to  carry  on  nature's  work  one  step 
further?  The  day  is  past  when  men  can  go 
forward  with  competition  as  their  cry  of 
progress;  nothing  lasting  can  now  come  for 
men  unless  it  is  brought  about  by  inter- 
dependence and  co-operation.  The  best  of 
men  to-day  see  the  inevitable  coming  of  this 
new  age  and  when  men  shall  be  sons  of  God 
in  deed  and  not  merely  in  name ;  but  their  cry 
for  altruism  and  co-operation  is  as  a  voice 
hurled  against  a  tempest.  They  can  but 
gather  round  them  here  an  enthusiast  and 
there  a  disciple;  but  they  accomplish  little, 
for  they  lack  the  character  that  compels  a 
world  to  listen.  Till  comes  that  Personality 
Who  is  not  of  one  nation  but  of  all, 
Whose  message  is  not  for  this  century 
alone  but  for  all  others  to  come,  till 
then  the  dawn  of  the  new  day  will 
drag  its  slow  length  along.  But  when  He 
comes,  then  indeed  what  He  says  and 
what  He  does  will  be  the  proof  to  us  that  it  is 
He,  and  not  another,  that  nature  has  planned 
to  be  the  Shadow  of  God  upon  earth  to  men, 
the  Saviour  that  is  born  unto  them  this  day. 


108         THE  HIDDEN  WORK  OF  NATURE 

Then  once  more  shall  the  Hidden  Light  be 
revealed  to  men,  that  Light  *^that  shineth  in 
darkness,  and  the  darkness  comprehended  it 
not."  Then  science  shall  be  our  religion,  and 
religion  our  art;  then  shall  we  cease  to  be 
nature's  slaves  and  enter  upon  our  heritage 
and  become  her  councillors  and  guides.  Then 
shall  we  know,  not  merely  believe,  that  be- 
hind the  seeming  pitiless  plan  of  nature  there 
is  a  most  pitiful  Mind,  careful  of  the  type  and 
careful  of  the  single  life  too.  Nevermore 
shall  our  eyes  be  blinded  by  passionate  tears 
as  we  look  at  the  misery  of  men  and  feel  the 
utter  hopelessness  of  its  effective  diminution; 
for  we  shall  know  that  nature  but  veils  an  Eye 
that  sees,  a  Heart  that  feels,  and  a  Mind  that 
plans,  for  One  shall  be  with  us  to  be  a 
Martyros,  a  Witness,  of  that  Light  that  shin- 
eth in  darkness,  even  when  the  darkness  com- 
prehends it  not. 

He  will  call  on  the  many  to  co-operate  in 
all  good  works  '^in  His  name  and  for  the  love 
of  mankind;"  He  will  teach  them  the  next 
lesson  that  nature  has  planned  for  them,  the 
joy  of  neighborly  service.  But  to  a  few  He 
will  give  the  call  to  follow  Him  through  the 
ages.   For  He  comes  but  to  usher  in  a  new 


THE  HIDDEN  WORK  OF  NATURE  109 

age;  that  age  must  be  tendered  and  fostered 
decade  after  decade,  century  after  century, 
till  the  seed  becomes  the  tree  and  the  tree 
bears  flowers,  and  by  the  perfecting  of  man 
comes  the  fulfilment  of  God.  As  He  is  na- 
ture's husbandman,  so  will  He  need  helpers 
in  those  fields  whence  alone  comes  the  Daily 
Bread  for  men. 

The  many  will  love  Him  for  the  peace  and 
joy  He  brings;  but  a  few  will  answer  the  call 
to  follow  him  life  after  life,  toiling,  toiling  in 
a  world  seemingly  without  end.  But  to  these 
few  alone  will  it  be  given  to  know  the  inward- 
ness of  the  message  of  the  Hidden  Light,  that 
nature  keeps  her  diadems  not  for  those  that 
reap  happiness  in  her  pleasant  fields  and  gar- 
dens, but  for  those  that  co-operate  with  her 
in  her  Hidden  Work,  and  try  '^to  lift  a  little 
of  the  heavy  karma  of  the  world.''  For  this 
is  nature's  Hidden  Work,  to  weave  a  vesture 
out  of  the  karmas  of  men  that  shall  reflect  the 
pattern  given  her  from  on  high;  and  the 
weaving  halts,  unperfected,  till  through  the 
actions  of  all  men  there  shall  shine  one  great 
Action.  When  the  perfect  vesture  is  woven 
for  Him  Who  desires  it,  and  the  karmas  of  all 
men  act  in  unison,  then,  and  not  before,  will 


110         THE  HIDDEN  WORK  OP  NATURE 

come  "that  day''  when  Nature  can  say  to  men, 
as  now  to  her  God,  "I  am  in  my  Father,  and 
ye  in  me  and  I  in  you."  Unto  that  hour  she 
toils  at  her  Hidden  Work,  and  it  is  the  Hid- 
den Light  that  reveals  to  men  her  process  of 
evolution  as  she  shapes  from  out  the  dust  im- 
mortal Sons  of  God. 


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